James Chapter 5. I kind of did a switch on us.
I could not get settled down at all this week. This has been
one of those weeks where. I just couldn't get settled on
anything. Sometimes we have those weeks. I'm sure you have and
when you just. Nothing just seems to go the
way you think is going to go. But here in this chapter, chapter
five, I want us to look at the proper attitude of believers
regarding trials. The proper attitude of believers
regarding trials. Our Lord is the supreme example
of patience. under trials. There's no greater
example than our Lord. The trials, the afflictions that
he was under. It says when he was reviled,
he reviled not. He never knew sin in thought,
word, and deed. When on the cross, He was taking
care of Mary. He said, John, you owe your mother.
I mean, he's taking care of his loved ones while he's suffering
under the wrath of God, under torment. He's thinking of others. Father, forgive them. They don't
know what they're doing. They know not what they do. In
Isaiah 53-7, he was oppressed. and he was afflicted, yet he
opened not his mouth. He's brought as a lamb to the
slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth
not his mouth. Not one word of complaint came
out of his mouth. He opened not his mouth. willingly,
submissively taking what the father laid on him. And the father laid on him the
iniquities of us all. And we can't comprehend our iniquities.
We can't comprehend our sinfulness. We are far, far worse than we
think we are. Far more sinful than we think
or realize we are. But he knew it. He knew it. And it was laid on him. And he
opened Noddy's mouth in one word of complaint. He never tried
to complain or to get out of the situation. Now in verses
one through six, I'm just going to say a few things about this,
then we'll get to the message. James addresses the rich of this
world. And I believe that's who he's
speaking to. Some of the writers said he's
speaking to the rich in the church who made a profession only, and
that may be so, but he's talking here to the world because he
says here in verse six, you have condemned and killed the just.
He does not resist you. So I know he's not talking to
believers. He's talking to the world. This
is their conduct. These are the rich men who were
corrupt and they used their riches for corrupt matters. They used their riches to fulfill
the lusts of the flesh. You know, it takes the work of
the Holy Spirit in stripping us showing us what we have in
Christ, showing us what God has saved us from, for us to quit
desiring to be rich. Now, we all desire to be rich.
When I was a young man, when I was a young man, I desired
to be rich. I had a man that I know very
well say to me, and he's there now, he's there, I wouldn't trade
places with him for anything under the sun. He said to me,
he said, when I was younger, I was determined I was going
to be so rich that I could say I want this, this, this, and
this, and it didn't matter what it cost. Well, he's there. He's there. He's made it. He
actually has made it. And yet he's the poorest man
I know because he doesn't know Christ. He doesn't know Christ. Not a penny of that's going to
go with him. Not a penny. I want to be rich in Christ.
I want to be rich in the things of God. These riches are called
durable riches. I want durable riches. Go to
now you rich men weeping house. Go ahead and get started. Start
weeping and howling now because this is what's coming. Here's
what's coming. Well, your miseries, your miseries. That rich man, what did he do? He lifted up his eyes in torment.
He said, Father Abraham, send Lazarus, that beggar who was
laying at my gate. Send him and let him dip his
finger in water and cool the tip of my tongue. He's in torment, and he's still
in torment. He's still there and that's never
gonna cease. Never gonna cease. Your riches
are corrupted and your garments are moth-eaten. You got so many
clothes hanging in the closet that they're moth-eaten. Now
somebody might be guilty of this. I've never been guilty of it,
but some of us, I know one particular person comes to my mind. You
don't know this person. A closet full of clothes with the tags
still on them. Still have the tags on them. Your riches are corrupted. Your
garments, you got so many of them hanging in the closet that
they're moth-eaten. You don't even wear them if you
got so many. And your gold and silver is cankered. It's turning
colors because you're not using it. You're hoarding it up. You're not using it. And this
is interesting, the rust of them. What does rust come from? Not using it. He's saying you've
got so much wealth stored up and you're not using it at all.
You've hoarded up for your last days, like that rich man said,
he said, my soul, you've got much laid up for years to come. Here's what I'm going to do.
I'm just going to build bigger barns. I didn't say I'm going
to support the gospel. I'm not going to help Lazarus laying
out there at the gate. I'm just going to make myself a bigger
pot, a bigger can to put everything in. And also, listen, this is interesting.
And the rush, you know what also that word means? Poison. I looked
that up today. It means poison. Here. And the
poison of your riches. They're gonna be a witness against
you. Eat your flesh as it were fire. You have heaped treasure
together for the last day. And this is what he's saying.
Your riches you've kept for corrupt purposes. You've used them for
corrupt reasons. Now, riches themselves are not
sinful, just like there's no sin in a can. People think if they don't drink
a can of beer, they're not sinning. I don't drink no more. Well,
what are you trying to prove? That's good. I mean, that's probably
good for you, but don't. There's no sin in a can. There's
no sin in drugs. Sin is in us. You know, God has
saved some rich people. Philemon was rich, wasn't he?
Cornelius, was he not rich? Abraham, Isaac, Jacob? You know,
I agree with Paul Mahan on this. He said, for the most part, and
everyone I know whom God has saved is rich, they were rich
before God saved them. I have personally not seen anybody
made materially rich, a believer. I've not seen them made materially
rich after the Lord has saved them. I've seen him strip them. I've seen him strip some rich
people, I have. I've lived long enough to see some of these things.
I've seen some of them come down. But the problem is not with the
riches, it's the problems with the people who have them and
their use of them. Turn over to, and I spent more
time on this than I thought I would. Turn over to 1 Corinthians chapter
seven. And I'm gonna just say this and
I'll get with the, the message. First Corinthians
7, here is how we are to handle these riches. This is given to
us in the scriptures in verse, let me see which verse I want
to read. Let me go back to verse 29. But this I say, brethren, the
time is short. Our time on this earth is short.
And the Lord's gonna make a short work on this earth and cut it
short in righteousness. But it remaineth, listen, that
both they that have wives be as though they had none. It's
not ignoring them, but we don't put them before the Lord Jesus
Christ. We do not put the family before Christ, period. Nobody
comes before Christ. Wives or husbands, children,
they don't come before the Lord Jesus Christ. They don't come
before this. Reaching to the gospel, sitting here, hearing
the gospel, they don't come before that. Christ is first. And they
that weep as though they wept not, and they that rejoice as
though they rejoice not, and they that buy as though they
possess not. You know, you buy things, but
they don't possess you. The rich man's riches possess
him. The scripture says the rich man's riches won't let him sleep. And they, now here, listen. Here's
how we handle what God has given us, whether it be little or much. And they that use this world
as not abusing it, you use what God has given to you. God's given
it to you to use. And they that use this world
and not abusing it, for the fashion of this world passeth away. We
don't get attached to anything we have. I've been told that
I'm too unattached. I don't have anything from my
past, hardly. I don't. And I'm not saying if
you do, that's fine. I'm not condemning that. But
I haven't kept hardly anything. You'd have a hard time tracing
my past if you just keep looking through the house. It's just
I'm just not attached to these things. I'm not attached to them. You know, I used to have a bunch
of trophies in wrestling. I had a bunch of trophies. I
had zero idea what happened to them. They're gone. They're gone. And they don't mean anything
to me. They mean zero to me. Zero. There's only one thing
that means anything to me, and I believe to you who believe,
Christ. Paul said, I count all things
but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus
my Lord, that I might be found in him, not having my own righteousness,
but the righteousness which is of him, the faith of him. That's what I'm concerned about.
That's all I'm concerned about. And so he gives out a warning
here to these rich men who abuse these things. And it's also a
warning for those who are among God's children who are rich,
how to use these riches. Now, in verse 7 through 12, James
turns and he addresses the brethren. You notice that he does not call
those rich men he's talking to their brethren. You know, if
you're going to build a church, the last people you want to offend
are the rich ones. That's the ones that the Joel
Osteens and all them, that's who they go after. They go after
the rich ones. They go after the men of money. So James is
not in this for the money. If he were, he would not be saying
this. He wouldn't be offending them. But he's not after men. He's after the souls. I'm after
the souls of men. To warn men and women what's
coming. And to warn God's people, don't
get attached to these things. Don't get attached to this world.
Use it now. Use what God's given you. Don't
abuse it. That's the way he's saying, don't abuse it. And he
says here, be patient. Therefore, brethren, you know,
we have need of patience. We have need of patience because,
you know, this, this is a journey we're on. It's a journey. We might live to be old, old,
as believers. And we need patience as we pass
through this world. We're just pilgrims here. We're
just pilgrims. We're pilgrims following the
cloud. We follow the cloud, the Lord Jesus Christ. Boy, the other
day, I have to say, I was doing something outside, and that sun
was hot. It was hot. And as I was working on something,
and a cloud came over. And that felt so good. That heat,
I mean, the heat, you know how it's been like the last few days.
That heat, I didn't feel it no more. And I looked up, and I
looked at that cloud. And my fault was this. Thank
you, Father, for the Lord Jesus Christ, that cloud that's between
me and you. Our God's a consuming fire. And
it just hit me so strongly, that cloud that protects me from that
burning sun, that burning heat, is the Lord Jesus Christ. He's
that cloud that was between Israel and God. It's amazing sometimes
what God can impress upon you when you're just outside. and
just a little cloud come over and just took that heat away.
And I thought of that, God brought that to my mind and just made
it live a little more there in Exodus. But be patient, be patient
as you journey through this world because it's not home, we're
headed home. We're going home, that's where
we're going. We walk in an evil world, a world that hates God
and hates Christ and hates us. Don't let it fool you. The world
hates you. He said the world hates me, it'll
hate you. So let's be patient as we walk through the, and this
is how we ought to see this world, now listen. As we walk through
the valley of the shadow of death. I was thinking as I was driving
back from the dentist a couple days ago, I was thinking of this
earth, I was just, Another thought impressed upon me. I thought,
I'm driving, I'm driving on a big graveyard. That's all I'm driving. I'm driving on a cemetery. Something
has died on every inch of this earth. A plant, an insect, a
person. This is a, you know, if man wants
to, if man wants to know what he really is, he lives in a cemetery. That's where man lives, in a
cemetery. He's gonna be buried on the very
ground he's standing on. That's what this world is. It's
the valley, but for you and me, it's the valley of a shadow of
death. It's not death for us, it's a
shadow. That's all it is, just a shadow. Now how long are we
to be patient? He said, be patient therefore,
brethren. How long are we to be patient?
unto the coming of the Lord. He's coming, you know, he's coming. Never lose sight. Let us never
lose sight of who we're waiting on. We're waiting on the Lord. We
forget that. I think we do too often. I think
we get so busy. We forget that, that we're waiting
on the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the mark, he's the prize
of our high calling. We are waiting, now listen, we
are waiting on someone to come, not something to happen. Now he's gonna come, listen,
he's gonna come to put an end to all this, or he's gonna come
for us individually. If I don't die before you do,
if I'm not too old, I'll be doing your funeral. I'll be doing your funeral. Someone asked me here not too
long ago if I'd do their funeral. I said, you'd better hurry up
and die, because I'm getting old. You'd better hurry up and die
if you want me to do it. But anyway, we are to be patient
until the coming of the Lord. We're waiting on the Lord to
come. We're waiting on Him to come and get us. He said He would. He said He would. We ought to
be looking for Him. Looking for Him. Now this waiting
on the Lord is not passive, it's active. It's an active waiting. It's being about our Father's
business as we look for His return. Because He's coming. He's coming. And he gives us an example of
this waiting and this activity. Because we are in our Lord's
vineyard. We're in our Father's vineyard,
aren't we? This is his vineyard, the church. It's his vineyard.
This is his world. It's his world. Behold the husbandman, the farmer.
Notice how he waits. I'll tell you what, God has made
everything to have a spiritual example. If he'll just open our
eyes and let us see. He said, look at the farmer,
how he waits. The farmer, he plants his crops.
He doesn't sit in the house and wait for crops to grow. He's
gotta plant, he gotta plow the ground. He's gotta plow the ground
and fertilize and he's gotta do all that stuff that a farmer
does. And then he plants the crops. And then he waits on God
and some of them are totally ignorant of God, but you still
gotta wait on God to send the rain. It hasn't rained here since June
the fourth, I think I heard. It ain't gonna rain till God
sends it. It ain't gonna happen. I was thinking today, as I was
mowing this grass, how dead it is, it's dead. And I was thinking
today, I thought, you know, Maybe we ought to think about praying
for rain. We're just, you know, we don't even think about praying
for it. Lord, send the rain. Send us some rain, we need some
rain. We ought to ask our Heavenly Father to send these things we
need. But the farmer, he waits on God to send the rain in its
season. You see, the farmer is at God's
mercy who gives the increase. We are at God's mercy, aren't
we? We're at God's mercy. But I thank God we're at God's
mercy and not man's because man ain't very merciful. But after
having done this, after having planted and worked in his vineyard,
we just wait. Wait. You know, I don't put pressure
on anybody here to make a decision or to be baptized. I don't put pressure on anybody.
You know what I'm doing? I'm waiting on God. I'm sowing
the seed. I'm planting. I mean, I'm planting.
Paul said one plant, Apollo's planting, one water, but God
gives the increase. I plant each week. It's God who
gives the increase. I wait on Him. I'm not gonna
put pressure on anybody to make a decision, make them to do something
God hasn't done for them. And I know this from my own experience. I know it from my own experience.
If God ever convicts of sin, righteousness, and judgment,
the Holy Spirit, if he takes a sinner in hand and convicts
of sin, righteousness, and judgment, that sinner's coming. That sinner's
going to confess Christ. That sinner's going to follow
the Lord. That sinner's not going to be ashamed of the Lord. That
sinner's going to say, I want to be identified with Christ
and with his people. And all I need to do is get out
of the way. I'm not trying to build a big
congregation here. I'm trying to preach Christ,
honor and glorify him. And if he has more sheep in his
community, they'll come. You get the word out, invite
him. The Lord has sheep, he'll bring it. Who brought those animals
to the ark? Did Noah go out and get all those
animals? Did he go out and find a mosquito? Did he go out and
find those flies? Did he go out and find the elephant?
Did he go out, he didn't go out and, oh, Noah did, you know what
he did? He built the ark. That's what he did, he built
the ark. That's like me preaching Christ crucified. That's the
same as me preaching Christ crucified. And God brought those animals,
God put it into those animals to migrate to that ark. Those wild animals, about as
wild as we were. to migrate to that ark. God did
that. God did it. God is faithful. Now listen,
God is faithful to send us what we need. He's faithful to send
us what we need in order to conform us to the image of Christ and
wean us from this world. Whatever I have, I need it. I
need it. I was thinking of this today.
Here's another thing that really impressed me as I was going over
these notes. You know, about, I don't know, a year ago or over
ago, I had a stroke in my cerebellum area. That's where I was so dizzy
and all that. You know why I had that stroke?
I needed it. I needed it. Marvin, Marvin's
had a bad stroke. Mine was nothing like that. He
needed it. Whatever, the church in Rock
Valley, Iowa got flooded out here this past week. You know
why? They needed it. Everything God gives us, we need.
Wish I could get a hold of that. Wish we could learn to welcome
these things as friends and not foes. The Lord giveth and the Lord
taketh away. Well, blessed be his name. So God is faithful to send us
what we need in order to conform us to the image of Christ. And
just as the farmer's crops will not grow until God does his work,
neither shall we grow spiritually until God sends us the trials
we need, everything we need. What we need in his word every
week. We need instructions. I preach
here every week, and we need these things. We need the word.
We need the word. I can't say that strong enough.
We need it to grow by it. You can't grow without the word.
And we need the trials, and we need all that God sends us to
make us like his son. And so, so be patient. Be patient. Don't murmur against
God's wise providence like Israel of old did. I don't want to be
like that. I don't want to be, I don't want to be like that.
And as he says here in verse eight, be ye also patient, establish
your hearts for the coming of the Lord draws nigh. As the farmer waits, So we are
to wait on the Lord, to work his will in us and for us, and
establish, that is, strengthen your heart, be firm in the faith, strengthen
your hearts in Christ, not tossed about because of conflicts. You know, we're not tossed about
about doctrine, are we? Nobody here has talked about
the doctrines of grace, doctrines of the gospel. But what about
when something comes along that disappoints us, God takes away
from us? What about that? You see, the
heart is established spiritually when we can say amen to the doctrine
of election, amen to the doctrine of predestination, amen, the
Lord taketh away. Amen. It's the Lord, let him
do as he will. It's him. We are so prone to doubting God's
love and grace to us when hardships come our way. You know, Job was
tried because, for one reason, God loved him. God loved him,
that's why he tried him. God tried Jacob. Jacob said,
my days been few and full of evil trials. He didn't try Esau. Esau was rich. Esau had an army. We're so prone to doubt God's
love, but you know, God tried Job because he loved him. Christ
said to his disciples concerning the Pharisee, you
know, he said concerning them, leave them alone. I don't want God to leave me
alone. I don't want that. The only way the heart can be
established is by the word, now listen to me, by the word of
God, the gospel. By reading the word, not only
hearing it here, but go home and read it. Read it with purpose.
It's established by the preaching of Christ crucified. Preaching
out of the word, preaching Christ out of his word. It's established
by the work of the Holy Spirit. and by the trials God sends us. What we consider to be an expression
of displeasure is really an expression of God's love. You see the spiritual
world and the natural world are turned upside down. It's turned
upside down. We think it's one way, but with
God it's another. And he brings us around to that
other way, his way. Hebrews chapter 12, verse five
and six. And ye have forgotten the exhortation
which speaks unto you as unto children. My son, despise not
thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked
of him. For whom the Lord loveth, he
chasteneth and scourgeth. Whips, whips. You know, my dad, I never saw
my dad whip any of the neighbor's sons. He never whipped anybody
else's children. I never saw him do it. I never
saw him one time disciplined or anything like that in any
way, shape, or form. But he sure whipped me. I mean, that man can whip. Think
of him. Mom. Mom gave us more whippings
than Dad did. Take a switch off that tree and
just leave whips all over you. Now today, they would put him
in jail. But what he did was right. What
he did was right. He kept me and my brothers and
my sisters from running with the, even though we probably
were the wrong crowd, he didn't let the wrong crowd run with
us, put it that way. But he, they disciplined us. But whom the Lord loveth, he
disciplined us. He chastens. You love your children,
you chasten your children. Parents who do not chase their
children, discipline their children, do not love their children. They
don't love them. Grudge not, now he says in verse
nine, grudge not one against another. Brethren, don't turn on each
other. That's why he's saying don't
turn on each other. When you go under heavy trials, Don't let
it make you bitter. Don't let it make you envious,
saying, why me? Why this? When one is being blessed,
what you call being blessed, you know, if one is being blessed
and prosperous and one is being disciplined, both are being blessed. Are not both being blessed? Both
are being blessed. Grudge not, now this word, grudge
not, you know what that means? This is interesting. It means
to sigh or groan inwardly. Keeping it all inside you. Don't
be guilty of inward bickering and accusations. You know, you
don't say it out loud, but inside you're bickering. He said, don't
do that. You see how the spiritual thing
reach into the heart? into the very character of a
believer. It's not just what you do on the outside. It's who
you are on the inside. It's your true character. Trials are supposed to hurt.
It's not a trial that doesn't hurt. These are golden fiery
trials. And what trials reveal is this.
They reveal what's still in us. It's what's still in us. And in light of what we have
in Christ, in light of the glory that's coming, they're just light
afflictions. Would you call Job's afflictions
light? I bet if you could ask Job right now, he'd say they
were light compared to what the far, the glory that it has worked
for me. In verse, listen, in 2 Corinthians
4, 15, 18, for all things are for your sakes, all things, you name it, it's
for your sake. That the abundant grace might
through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God for
which cause we faint not, but though our outward man perish. Yet the inward man is renewed
day by day for our light affliction, which is but for a moment. As
I preach Sunday, in a little while, it's just a little while,
but for a moment. It worketh for us a far more
exceeding and eternal weight of glory. While we look not at
the things which are seen, see, that's the problem. If you look
at the things that are seen, that's the problem. But we look
at the things which are not seen. But the things which are seen
are temporal, things which are not seen are eternal. These trials,
you know what he's saying here, for our light affliction, which
is but for a moment works for us, they are employed for us. You know, when I had a business,
I had about 15 employees working for me. All these trials are
like employees working for us. They're working for us. Employed
by God to serve us. to teach us. That's what they're
for. They teach us also our continual
dependence on Jesus Christ. It's surprising how fast we forget
that. But listen here in verse 9, the
judge is at the door. Judgment belongs to Christ and
he'll do right. Therefore, let's wait on him
to handle all matters. Wait on him to handle the matter.
That's hard to do, isn't it? We want to take things in our
own hand. He said, wait on the judge. Because if we judge, we
set ourselves up for judgment. That's not condemnation. That's just mean God's going
to bring. We're setting ourselves up for
the chastening rod again. That's what we're doing. Now,
you take our brethren, the prophets, take them who spoke in the name
of the Lord. Look how they were treated, being
God's servants. We're not any better than they
are. Look at their lives, how many of them had to live. Hebrews 11, 35 through 40. Read
that when you go home. In caves, I mean, they were treated
awful. But look at them now, in verse
11. Look here in verse 11. Behold, we count them happy which
endured. Do you count Job happy right
now? Jacob? Abraham? What about Lazarus laying at
the rich man's gate that everybody walked around him so they wouldn't
have to deal with it? You count him happy? They endured. They endured the
shame, they endured the mockery, they endured, many of them endured
being martyrs, beheaded, put, set on fire. This is our brethren
that this happened to. You know, you take, what if you,
you know, your family in here, what if one of you was taken
to the, out here and just set on fire? Our brothers were. We have brothers
and sisters that, that happened to. Our real brothers and sisters
in Christ. It happened to them. Now he says,
look at them, how happy they are now. They're with the Lord.
They're with him. And by God's grace, we'll be
there in just a little bit. I can almost say in a few minutes,
we'll be there. Can I say that? In just a few
minutes, we'll be there. That's all it is. That's all
it is. And in Christ, we have much more
than we could ever lose in this life. You haven't lost anything
till you lost your life. Nothing. Whatever I lose, whatever
God takes, I have much more in Christ. But above all things,
above all things, my brethren, and it's interesting that he
says this, swear not. Don't be given to swearing. Neither
by heaven, neither by earth. Don't invoke the name of God
to establish what you're saying. Be careful about that. Be careful
because you know God answers prayer and you better be dead
right if you're going to call God in on your side. You better
not have a glimmer of a doubt because God is not a respecter
of persons. Above all things, brothers, swear
or not, swear or not, don't invoke the name of God to establish
what you're saying. When we call God to be witness, we better
be honest. And I tell you this, you know,
honest people don't need to swear. Honest people don't need to swear.
Most of the time, crooks, when they get caught, they're, I swear
I didn't do that. I swear I wasn't there. And then
they get caught. They were there. They did it.
Heaven and earth, now listen to this. Heaven and earth is
not ours to swear by, it's God's. Don't swear by heaven and earth,
it doesn't belong to you. As far as that goes, it's his. It's
his. And don't let the heaviness of
trials cause you to use such language. Don't do that. Unwholesome language shows a
weakness of character. That's what it shows. It's just
a weakness of character. A simple, verse 12, a simple
yes or no is sufficient for a believer to use. That's all. You don't
have to say no more. I don't care if somebody says,
well, what about, I don't owe you, I don't owe you any more
than yes or no. That's sufficient. The proper attitude. of believers
regarding trials. I pray God gives us that attitude.