The lesson this morning will
be taken from James chapter 5 and verses 1 through 11. The gist of these verses is stated
in verse 7, which I chose my title. Behold, he said, the husbandman
waited. He's, you know what a husband
man he is. He's a farmer, for lack of a
better word, and he's planted some seed. And he patiently waits
for that seed and the fruit that it'll produce. Let's read these
verses together. James chapter 5, verse 1. Go to now, ye rich men, Weep
and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches
are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten, your gold and
your silvers cankered, and the rest of them shall be a witness
against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were a fire. Ye have heaped treasure together
for the last days. Behold, the hire of the laborers
who have 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 Sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on
the earth, and been wanting You have nourished your hearts as
in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and killed
the just who doth not resist you. Be patient therefore, brethren,
unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth
for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience
for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient, establish
your hearts, for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. Grudge
not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned. Behold,
the judge standeth before the door, not far off, he's not way
out yonder somewhere, he's standing at the door. I remember getting called to
jury duty one time, and we were all sitting around. That was
my first time on jury duty. I didn't know what to expect,
but everybody was talking. The place was humming, you know,
inside the courtroom, and lawyers were talking to their people
and so on. All of a sudden, that place got
quiet. And I turned around and looked,
and the judge was standing at the door. He's coming out of
his chambers. That's what James is telling us. Be careful. Be careful. The judge standeth
at the door. Take my brethren the prophets
who have spoken in the name of the Lord for an example of suffering,
affliction, and of patience. Behold, we count them happy which
endure. You've heard of the patience
of Job and have seen the end of the Lord. That the Lord is
very pitiful and of tender mercy. Now there's three things that
I want us to see in these verses. First of all, kind of in-your-face
rebuke and warning against wicked and ungodly practices to get
gains. Boy, James don't pull any punches,
I'm telling you. He pastored that large church
there at Jerusalem and he's seen everything that there was to
see. And then secondly, I want us to see a reminder of whose
kingdom we live in. We live in a kingdom. We have a king, we have government,
we have rules to abide by. A reminder of whose kingdom we
live in and whose king we are to obey. And then thirdly, an
encouragement to believers who are being misused by these people
to be patient under sufferings for the coming of the Lord draws
nigh. Let's begin here with this very
sharp and in-your-face rebuke against any and all ungodly and
wicked ways to get gain. Well, what are these things?
Well, according to James, underpaying your employees. Huh? James just don't do that. That's
not of God. That's not godly. You're not
gaining anything by that, and whatever you gain is going to
cry out against you. Underpay your employees. Taking
advantage of hard times and difficult situations to get gain. Boy,
we've seen that over the past four years. Just marking prices
up to no end. And there was no cause for that.
I could see a cause for a little bit of increase, but for things
to go four and five times what they used to cost, that's taking
advantage of hard times. That's what that is. Anytime our economy gets ruffled,
as it has been over these last four years, businessmen use this
as a springboard to raise prices to a ridiculous height. And then
when it's over, they just bring it down a little. And you know this is so because
in average time, everything goes up gradually all the way across
the board. But during difficult times, They
select certain things that are in the most demand, and those
are the things that go up. Same thing with labor. Get folks
in a place where they have to have so much to live, and they'll
barely pay their help enough to live on. When this letter was written
to Jews being dispersed throughout that part of the world, in all
of these countries, they were unknown in these countries, and
all of a sudden, there was a surge in men needing jobs, and a surplus
of workers, and the rich established businessmen were taking advantage
of it. It was being practiced everywhere,
and even in some of the churches. The demand for food went up,
and they took advantage of that. And so he says, go to now, you
rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that's going to come
upon you. God's not going to bless that kind of gang. He's just not going to do it.
Your riches are corrupted, your garments are moth-eaten, your
gold and silver's cankered, and the rest of them shall be a witness
against you, and it'll eat your flesh as it were a fire. You'll
sit and you'll watch your riches go to nothing. You watch all
that gang that you thought you had disappear and it's gonna
burn you like a fire. Not a pretty picture. Rich man fared well here for
a little while, didn't he? And then they both died, he and
Lazarus both died. You view him now in hell begging
for a drop of water while Lazarus rests in Abraham's bosom. Now let me tell you something.
If you're in business to be rich, this rebuke is for you. It's
for you. Paul said of the believers who've
been delivered out of such things, let him labor. So he can be rich? No. So to what end? That he may have to give to him
that needeth. Is that right? We don't start
businesses to get rich. If you do, it's all you, and
the Lord's not in it. Being rich is not a sin, but
how you get there is. We're to plan, be motivated,
practice living as believers, and not greedy rebels. Abraham
was a rich man, but he was a godly man. And his riches came to him
as a result of God's blessing, whatever it was he did. Sheep and camels and everything
he put his hand to. And I don't care how much you make
or how you spend it, it'll be a curse to you. That's what James
was saying. And then secondly, we're reminded
of these verses In these verses of whose kingdom we have the
privilege of living in and whose king we are to obey. Here's what James says, Behold
the husband man. Who's that? Who's that? Well, in John chapter 15, our
Lord said this, He said, I'm the true vine and my father's
the husband man. I'm the vine. Everything that
he's purposed in me, all of my licks, all of these things, of
their salvation, all of these things. He's the husband man. Christ
is the man. And he's going to wait. He's
going to wait. It's going to get the early rain,
but he's going to wait. Be dry for a little while, but
pretty soon the latter rain. And I don't know if you know
it or not, but my friend, you and I are living on God's farm.
That's where we're at. We're on God's farm. And this
whole world is His vineyard. Wheat and tares, weeds and seeds,
rough ground, and ground prepared to produce fruit. And we're living
in His world, and we're living here according
to His purpose. Everything on this earth is serving
the purpose of God. Jacob have I loved, Esau have
I hated, but the elder is going to serve the younger. Living in a world, and it's according
to his purpose, and so we need to get our eyes off of ourselves
and behold the husband man. Not going to learn anything looking
at ourselves. You're going to be just as ignorant
as you were before you looked. Behold the husband man. We're put here to live. We're
not put here to live to our own ends, but to serve his purpose and to work under
our husband man. We're laborers together with
God, Paul said. We're God's husbandry. And we
need to be constantly reminded of whose kingdom we're in. God has a people, and these people
He's purposed to save in His Son for the glory of His name. And we who are in His kingdom
understand that we're left in this world to that end. That's why we're here. We don't
have any other reason. All those that Christ bought
with His precious blood and wrought out of righteousness for and
clothed them and intercedes for them in glory, they're as ready
for heaven as they're ever going to be. I thought about this as
I was studying this morning. Somebody comes to me and says,
well, I've been to the doctor. He diagnosed me with cancer and
it's fatal. What can you tell me? Nothing
that I haven't already told you. Nothing. I don't have anything
extra. I don't have one message for
the dying and one for the living. I have one message, Christ. He's
sufficient to live on in this world. He's sufficient to die
in here. He's sufficient. Christ, that's the only message
I have. I say that for you and I say it for myself. I preach
to myself up here as much as I preach to you. We're to assist him in any and
every way to the gathering of, and the maintenance of, and the
full production of this precious fruit, his elect. He can make us rich or leave
us poor. And he may educate us to the
highest letter or leave us seeking knowledge. And living in His kingdom, we're
heirs of God, the world, Paul said, life, death, all things
present, things to come, all of ours, and you're Christ, and
Christ is God. Everything we have is in Him,
and everything we have is according to His purpose. We always want
to say, if this, then I would. No. No. He's given you exactly
what you need. You be faithful to that, he may
give you more. And believers know these things,
and yet we must be reminded of them constantly. So be patient, James says. How
long? Until the coming of the Lord. Until the coming of the Lord. There's a parable over in Matthew.
Chapter 21, verses 33 through 40, that we do well to study. The man he left in his vineyard
decided to use it for his own wicked ends, refused to let him
have the fruit of it, slayed his servants. He sent some servants down there,
they killed him. And then at the last, They slayed
his son. When the Lord, therefore, of
the vineyard cometh, what's he going to do with these husband
men? So be reminded, myself included,
whose kingdom do I live in? Who is the husband? Behold, the
husband man. He's the one in charge. I'm not
to poke a point, he is. Now listen to this. Here's the
third thing I want you to see. An encouragement to all that
are being misused in this wicked, greedy, self-serving world to
be patient under their present sufferings, whatever they are.
What does the Lord tell the believer concerning these things? Well,
first of all, the Lord of the harvest is coming again. That
ought to be a comfort, shouldn't it? He owns the farm. He planted
the seed. It's His. It's His. He'll straighten
things out when He gets there. Our Lord left this world with
an angelic escort, ascended into glory where He took His rightful
place at the right hand of God as the one mediator between God
and men, all power in heaven and earth being given to Him
just like Pharaoh put the seal on Joseph's hand, and when anybody
came seeking corn, they said, see Joseph. He's the child. See Joseph. And God has more than proven
His love for us, His willingness to hold anything, His unwillingness
to hold anything back from us. And with a father such as this,
whose son is our elder brother, what need do we have of riches? Here's the problem. We don't
really believe it. It's unbelief. That's our problem.
It's constant. It's like a cancer. We talk about it all the time.
We talk about our Lord sitting on the throne. All power over
everything that is. And first little thing comes
along, we blow her back. Why did this have to come? Huh? Back up a little bit. Does your guy sit on the throne?
Is he running things? Then be patient. Be patient. Don't, don't. You don't need
to get all excited. He's not going to hold any. He
that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all,
how shall he not also with him freely give us all things? He's
not going to hold anything back. The only thing he'll withhold
from you is something that deters his purpose or something that's
not good for you to have. With a father such as this, whose
son is our elder brother, what do we need of riches? You think
Tiffany or Ernest or Barron Trump worry about being rich? Their father's a billionaire.
They're not worried about money. Well, what's our father on? Everything that is. Everything
that is. And we worry about money. But I can guarantee you this,
even though they may want it, Mr. Trump won't give them anything
that he feels will do them harm. Behold, the husband. His Son
is set in the purpose of God to return. Why is He coming? He said He's coming to receive
us unto Himself. Oh, what a thought! What a thought! That the Son of God coming in
all the glory of His Father's house would throw His hands out
and welcome you to Himself. Huh? Oh, what a thought! He's coming to receive us unto
Himself, that where He is, there we may be also. And He's coming
to raise the dead unto judgment. He's going to set things right. But until then, we're to observe
the patience, the long patience of the Lord, until His wheat
has received the early and the latter rain. And then here's
the fourth thing. Considering all these things,
what am I to do? Verse 8, Be ye also patient. Let me read you something out
of Romans 8. Turn over there with me. I want you to see this
for yourself. Romans chapter 8. Verse 22, For we know that the whole creation
groaneth and travaileth in pain until now, something about to be produced,
something born of God, a new world, a new creation. And not only they, but ourselves
also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves,
grown within ourselves, waiting for the adoption to wit, the
redemption of our bodies. God's going to raise these vile
bodies. For we're saved by hope. Do I
have hope? Do you have hope? And is not
our hope in Christ? But hope that seems not hope,
for what a man seeth, why does he yet hope for it? But if we
hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for
it. That's where patience comes from.
So what am I to do? I'm to be patient. And secondly,
establish your hearts. As you have therefore received
Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him. Establish your hearts. Remind yourself daily. Go over
it. Read it again and again and again.
Our hopes in Christ. Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Establish yourself in that. Establish your speech that way
and your actions that way and your plans that way. Pray that
way. And you, Paul said, who were
sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works,
yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through
death to present you holy, unblameable, and unreprovable in his sight."
Now watch this if you continue in the faith. Grounded and settled. and be not moved away from the
hope of the gospel, which you have heard and which was preached
to every creature which is under heaven, whereof I, Paul, am made
a minister." Establish your hearts. Get it straight in your minds,
grounded in your hearts. And James warns over and over
about double-mindedness. The double-minded man is unstable
in all of his ways. That man who has the mind of
Christ, who's established in Christ, his mind, his thoughts,
everything is settled. It's settled. They're in harmony
with what he says he believes. Double-minded man, who's that?
That's a fence-straddler. That's one foot in the world
and one foot in the kingdom of God. He don't know which way
to go. He's going to wait and see who
wins. He might have a hope, but it's not a sure hope. He wants
eternal life, but he's not ready to turn loose of this world.
Establish your hearts, James said. Keep thine heart, out of it are
the issues of life. And then he says this, grudge
not one another. Why? Two reasons. First of all,
the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. And secondly, in verse
9, the judge standeth at the door. And let me leave you with
this. We have the prophets and the
apostles as an example, Job and others he points to, and especially
our Lord, pitiful and of tender mercies. Oh Lord, teach this
sinner how to live and act in this world with the mind of Christ. Let me face things, let me do
things, let me preach things, and all of them in harmony with
God. That's what it means to be holy.
Holy. It means get in harmony with
God. Holiness has got harmony occurring. And when he says, be ye holy,
for I am holy, he's saying be in harmony with me. All right,
thank you.