James chapter 5. Read James 5. Read verses 13 and 14 with me. Is any among you afflicted? Let
him pray. Is any merry? Let him sing psalms. He said, he's sick among you.
Let him call for the elders of the church. Let them pray over
him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. We looked
at this last Sunday in depth, but still it's difficult. James began this whole book by
talking about the trial of your faith. You count it joy when
you fall into different temptations or trials, knowing the trying
of your faith worketh patient. The trial of faith, it comes
in many forms, these trials of believers. Some are tried in
one way more than others, according to the however the
Lord sees fit to send whatever to whomever according to His
will. There are differences between
afflictions and sickness. We just saw that. It's afflicted
that can pray. Verse 14, is sick among you. There's a difference. 1 Thessalonians
1, we didn't look at this last Sunday, but this This will tell
us what afflictions are principally. The word afflicted, or affliction
means to be oppressed or persecuted or mistreated. It's mistreatment
at the hands of other people, mostly. 1 Thessalonians 1 verse
6 says of the believers in that church, you became followers
of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction. You see that? And all who take
a stand for the truth will suffer afflictions. They will suffer
wrongdoing and mistreatment at the hands of other people, of
the people of this world. And you read 1 Peter for yourself. Read the whole book of 1 Peter,
beginning with chapter 2, well, chapter 1, and all the way through
the end, it talks about suffering for righteousness sake. speaks
of our Lord being reviled, reviled not again, and says that you
may suffer for right doing and suffer for the truth's sake.
And he ended that book, 1 Peter, in chapter 5 by saying, the same
afflictions are accomplished in your brethren throughout the
world. And we read in Hebrews 11 how it talks about that great
cloud of witnesses who, because of the truth, were afflicted
They suffered in this world. So there are afflictions and
mistreatment and oppression from other people because of the truth,
the stamp of the truth. But then, we suffer afflictions. We can suffer affliction because of our sins against God. In other words, we can suffer
mistreatment from other people, and God sent them to do that
to us because of our sin. Let me show you Psalm 107. Go
over to Psalm 107. And this is just so. And David knew it well. David suffered
affliction at the hand of Saul. King Saul. Remember that? He
suffered affliction at the hands of Saul. He mistreated David.
Why? David was a righteous man. Even
Saul knew that. He didn't do anything against
Saul. But he suffered affliction at his hands. Well, after David's
great sin, Absalom, his son, afflicted him terribly, didn't
it? And David knew it was from the
Lord. Shimei cursed him. He knew, this is because I've
sinned against the Lord. He knew that. Psalm 107 verse
17 says this, Fools, because of their transgression and because
of their iniquities, are afflicted. See that? And this is all the
way through the Scriptures, talking about the children of Israel.
Because of their sins against God, God sent these enemies to afflict
them constantly. Do you understand? Do you understand?
You know, we need to understand. We need to recognize when the
Lord is chasing us for our sin. It's sad if we don't. If we're not hearing the lesson. And repent. asking for mercy,
forgiveness, and to turn us from that. Sickness. Sickness. Sent by God. All of it sent by
God. He said, I wound and I healed,
didn't He? According to God's will, according
to God's purpose, sends it upon whom He will, how He will, when
He will, as He will, the duration of it, the degree of it, sickness,
but God sends it. And this too, like affliction,
all His saints go through it, some more, some less, according
to God's purpose, according to the measure of Christ, the Scripture
says. It's all for His glory and our good. Some sickness,
like affliction, turn to 1 Corinthians 11. Much sickness, if not most, well,
it's all for the glory of God. But God sends and afflicts, as
we saw last Sunday, eminent saints, useful saints, vital saints.
It has down through the years. Why? For the glory of God. for a testimony. Some have witnessed
such a wonderful testimony through sickness. The affliction is called
sickness. Our Lord had Satan smite Job with boils all over
his body. And he was sitting, you know
the story, he was sitting in ashes, scraping his body. Anybody had one boil? He was covered all over. And
on top of all the affliction before that, the Lord sent all
this to him. Why? Well, number one is for
God's glory. Satan was a means, and these
enemies were a means, but God did it for His glory. And it says, in all this, Job
sinned not with his lips. He did not sin with his lips.
He witnessed a good testimony. He says, have we not received
good at the hands of the Lord? Shall we not receive evil also? His wife said, why don't you
curse God, Job? You believe God did this? Why
praise God? Look, you've lost everybody and
everything. You're sick. And if he did this, why in the
world would you pray? And he said, have we not received
good? Shall we not receive evil also? It's the Lord. The Lord gave,
the Lord takes. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
Oh, what a testimony that is. That gives more glory to God
than health and wealth. Everybody brags on and blesses
God because they have things and they're in good health. Everybody,
oh boy, lying in the bed or being hated and maligned and persecuted
and everybody against you and in sick and afflicted. Now, let's
see your witness and your testimony. And all this Job sinned not with
his lip nor charged God foolishly. God did not. But you know why God did all
this also? Job was self-righteous. And I'll show you that in a minute.
Well, I knew it was going to happen again. But Job, listen
to this, he sent a young preacher named Elihu to Job. And they
said this to Job in Job chapter 32. Elihu said this to Job after
it was all over. He said, the three men quit talking
to Job because he was righteous in his own eyes. And it says, the wrath of Elihu,
this true young preacher, you know the story, most of it, was
kindled against Job because he justified himself rather than
God. So we need whatever God sends us
for whatever reason. Job was full of self-righteousness,
and finally when God came to him and rebuked him, said, who
is doing all this talking? Who is this that knows everything?
Who is this that's arguing his cause, arguing his case? Job
said, I haven't done anything. Why am I getting this? And finally,
he did finally say, I'm going to order my cause before God.
Ooh, Job. And God said, who is this doing
all this talking? And Job said, and when it was all over, he
said, I hate myself. And he sent all these things
to bring him to himself. 1 Corinthians 11, some sickness,
all sicknesses of God, but some is because of sin. Sin. 1 Corinthians 11, verse 27, Whosoever
shall eat this bread, drink this cup of the Lord unworthily shall
be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man examine
himself, let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup.
Examine your motive. Examine why you're here, what
you're doing, what it is you're doing. Are you going through
the motions? Are you approaching God with
your lips, your body only, not the heart and soul? He that eateth
and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself,
judgment, not discerning the Lord's body, for this cause many
are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. Worship without
heart, a bad spirit, bitterness, anger, wrath, grieving the Spirit
of God, quenching the Spirit of God. The Lord may strike us
down like He did Miriam. I remember Miriam got puffed
up, got bitter against Moses, and God made her a leper. And she knew why. And she learned
that lesson. Worldliness. There are many reasons. We're all done yet. Worldliness. Take it up with
the world and forget God. You know the best way to remember
God? You get sick. It lays you low. And you start
thinking, how could I forget God and be taken up with things? That will make you stop and think. Will it profit to gain the whole
world or lose your soul? Sickness is a good thing. David said this. He summed it
all up. Oh, it's good for me that I've been afflicted. I wouldn't learn anything. But
it's good for me that I've been afflicted that I might learn
thy statutes." It's really sad, folks, weak
and sickly spiritually. And that's what that is talking
about. We just read, weak and sickly
spiritually, plainly because they don't attend to the things
of God. Don't come to the table. Don't eat right. You'll get sick
spiritually if you don't eat well, if you don't eat right.
And you can come here but not get a thing because you haven't
prepared your heart and your mind. You can be here in body
and not be here in spirit. Those that observe lying vanities,
the things of this world and other things, forsake their own
mercies and you'll get sick. You'll get sick spiritually.
You'll get sick. It's sad we don't recognize this.
There's only one balm of Gilead. You know that? There's only one
balm of Gilead that heals any and all manner of sickness and
affliction. It's what you're hearing right
now. The Word of God. This is the
holy anointing oil. You remember Psalm 133. Oh, how
good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in
unity, to dwell together. This is a hospital for sinners. where the Great Physician comes.
And it says, it's like the holy anointing oil that was on the
head of Aaron. That's Christ, the holy anointing
oil, the Word of God, the Spirit of God that goes on the head
of our Lord Jesus Christ, that flows down the beard to His garments. You know where the best place
to get that oil anointed on you, the Spirit of God anointed on
you, the blessing, the grace of God anointed on you, is hanging
on to the hem of His garment. Like that woman caught, taken
in the issue of blood. She tried many positions, went
here and went there. As long as she was hanging on
to the hem of His garment, that oil was going to pour all over
her. And you too. Us too. This is His body. This Word is His garment. This is where Christ is. The
head is promised to be. The oil of His Spirit is promised
to be. Hang on to the hem of that garment. And this will flow
all over you. There's healing. James 5. We could devote many messages
to that. James 5. So it says, "...any among you
afflicted, pray." Pray. Pray. Verse 15, "...the prayer
of faith shall save the sick." Pray. Verse 16, "...confess your
faults." Pray. One for another. Effectual, fervent
prayer. Elijah was a man of like passion. See, pray, pray, pray. Draw nigh unto God. He'll draw
nigh unto you. Pray. As I said last week, there's
nothing I could impress upon you more than the need to pray. Whosoever shall call on the name
of the Lord shall be saved. If you don't call on the Lord,
you won't be saved. And that doesn't mean just from
your sins. That means from everything that we're A pray to everything
that we're afflicted by. Without Him, we can do nothing.
We can't endure anything. We can't stand to one temptation.
We'll be filled with all manner of infirmities. Pray, pray, pray. Prayer. We saw that prayer is
a form of worship. We come to thank Him in prayer.
We come to acknowledge Him in prayer. Prayer is communion with
God. If you're not talking to somebody,
you're not in fellowship with them. It's communion with God. Prayer
is need. If you're poor and needy, there's
only one person to call on. He's a very present help in time
of need. Prayer is repentance. You'll
be unhealthy if you don't pray. You'll be spiritually sick if
you don't pray. Pray, pray, pray. You'll be all
out of sorts. And God will send it because
you're not praying. It's all on the name of the Lord.
Prayer of faith, verse 15. I don't know. I wish I knew more
about that. But prayer of faith shall save
the sick. I know this, and we saw this. We'll read the rest of that verse.
It said, The Lord shall raise him up, and if he hath committed
sins, they shall be forgiven him. Go to Psalm 41 with me. Psalm 41. And if you haven't
seen this Psalm, or at least it hadn't spoken to you, I pray
it will right now. Psalm 41. Now, the prayer of faith, he
says, will save the sick and raise up and forgive sins. I know this. I know this, talking
about forgiveness of sin. Our God is a God who is ready
to pardon. Ready to pardon. And it says,
all manner of sin shall be forgiven. To anyone that asks. All manner of sin. And look at
this, Psalm 41. Look at Psalm 41, verse 1. Blessed
is he that considereth the poor. Now this is Christ. The Lord
will deliver him in time of trouble. The Lord will preserve him and
keep him alive. And he shall be blessed upon
the earth. Thou wilt not deliver him under
the will of his enemies. The Lord will strengthen him
upon the bed of languishing. Thou wilt make all his bed in
his sickness. Keep reading. I said, Lord, be
merciful unto me, heal my soul, for I have sinned against thee.
You see that? My enemies, here's his affliction,
my enemies speak evil of me, when shall he die and his name
perish? And if he comes to see me, he
speaks vanity, his heart's gathering iniquity to itself. He goeth
abroad, he telleth that he's gossiping, he's talking about
me. All that hate me whisper together against me. Against
me do they devise my hurt. An evil disease, they say, cleaveth
fast unto him. Now that he lieth, he shall rise
no more. Oh, my own familiar friend. in
whom I trusted, that he'd have my bread and lifted up his heel
against me. O Lord, Thou, O Lord, be merciful
unto me, raise me up." All right, now listen to this. Our
Lord, and I'm going to talk more about this in the next message,
our Lord in His body on the tree took our sins. And it even says
He bore our sicknesses and our grief and our sorrow and affliction.
The reproach of them that reproached me, Christ said, fell on me. Affliction. He was afflicted,
hated, persecuted, not for any fault of His own, but as our
substitute. The Lord made His bed. The Lord
helped Him. You know, the Lord will indeed make your bed in sickness and
affliction. He will indeed. And He will raise
you up one way or another, if you're a believer. If you trust
Him, one way or another. We saw that, how some of our
brethren and sisters, the Lord did not raise them up in this
life. But He sure raised them up, didn't He? He sure did heal
them. Did He forgive their sins? Oh,
my! They're gone. Did He ever heal
them or what? We say, or what? Real healing. We pray, don't we? Heal them,
heal them. And they die. Well, He healed them all right.
Didn't He? Effectual, fervent prayer. And that's in the next message.
I'm going to deal with that. And the Lord may, He'll definitely
tell you, take up your bed and rise and walk. But prayer of
faith. I'm not sure I understand this. Let's look at it a little more.
Verse 16, he says, Confess your faults one to another. Pray for
one another that you may be healed. The effectual, fervent prayer
of a righteous man availeth much. Confess your faults. Now, he
just spoke of sins, didn't he? If a man committed sins, they'll
be forgiven him. Then he says, confess your faults
one to another. There's a difference. A big difference. We're not to confess our sins
one to another. No, no, no, no. No, no, no, no. He says, confess your faults.
He plainly made the distinction there. There's sins, then there's
faults. It was a young man and his wife sitting in a study talking
to me and Mindy. And it's clear after a while
he didn't really want to hear what I had to say. He wanted
to tell me what he knew. But he insisted that we should
have these little groups where we all sit around and confess
our sins to one another. And I said, that's not what the
Scripture said. It says, confess faults. It's a huge difference.
Well, he showed me his Bible, and he had one of these new translations,
and it said that, confess your sin. I said, you need to throw
that in the trash can. Because that's not what the Word
of God says. We confess our sins to Jesus
Christ alone. Why? Because He's the only one
that can forgive them. And He's the only one that can
forget them. If we confess our sins to one
another, particular evil and sins, we have aggravated their
flesh. We have aggravated their own
sins. They're thinking they might even
take liberty of what you've done. It's okay if I do it. And you're feeding their flesh.
Our flesh loves to hear about evil and sin. That's why there's
so many gossip shows and talk shows. That's what people love.
Dredge up dirt. I want to hear about it. Huh?
Not pure people. Not God. I want to hear that. It's hard to get things like
that out of your mind, isn't it? Don't do that. And it multiplies our guilt as
soon as we tell somebody other than our Lord. Now they know
about it. Now they know about it. And unless
they can be like our Lord and be silent and go to the grave
with your secret, somebody else is going to find out about it.
Now the whole world knows. Do you want that? Christ, don't you love that passage,
Brother Stan, where He opened not His mouth, standing before
Pilate and accusers and all that, as our substitute, our sin bearer,
he opened not his mouth. Why? He went to the grave with
our sins, our secret sins. Not going to give them up. Love covereth. You better hope
that person you confess to really loves you, because they'll cover
it. They'll never tell another soul. And there's only one I know like
that. Don't confess your sins to anybody.
1 John 1 says, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and
just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
He's the only one who can do anything about them. It doesn't
do your soul good to confess your sins to people. It will only do your soul good
to confess your sins to the Lord Jesus Christ. Faults now. Faults. We're all full of faults. We're
faulty people. We're fallen people and full
of faults. Everything about us is faulty,
wrong. Faults means faults in attitude,
behavior, conduct, faulty understanding, faulty perception of things,
faulty eyesight, faulty hearing. Believe me, my hearing is getting
bad and you may say something to me and I react wrongly. Please,
if it's bad, please forgive me. I might not have heard what you
said. I might have taken it wrong. We're all that way, people. We're
all that way. We're faulty. We don't have good
understanding. We don't have good perception.
We can't see like God sees. We can't see on people's hearts.
If they do things and say things and all of that, we may misunderstand
it. We're faulty. The older we get,
the more we ought to realize we're faulty. We're full of faults in behavior,
in conduct, in understanding, in word, in deed, thoughts, our
thinking. And we need to confess to one
another, brother or sister, I am faulty. Please forgive me. Please forgive me my bad attitude.
Please forgive me for my misunderstanding. Please forgive me for offending
you. Please forgive me for saying
and doing and not saying and not doing. Please, I'm a faulty,
sinful man. Please forgive me. And our Lord said, if you forgive
others, He said, pray this way, forgive us our trespasses as
we forgive those who trespass against us. He will. And the
only way you really will is to realize how faulty you are. He said, pray for one another.
Verse 16, pray for one another that you may be healed. You know,
relationships need healing. We're so faulty. We're so full
of sin. that we will hurt relationship,
whisper, or separate as very friends. Relationships need healing. And this confession is one way
it starts. Brother, sister, I'm so full
of fault. Everything about me. And would
you please have mercy on me? I'm just probably wrong. You
know, that's one of the hardest things in the world for us to do is
say, I'm wrong. As I said, the Lord on the cross
suffered for sins, afflictions. He prayed while He was on that
cross, didn't He? He prayed for the very ones that
were nailed in that cross. And what did God do? says the
sins will be forgiven, they'll be healed, and the effectual
fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. A little while
later, 3,000 souls are saved as a result of that man's fervent
prayer. Father, forgive them. Oh, Lord,
give me that mind. Give me that heart of the Lord
Jesus Christ, that the very ones that are slaying men, and I could
pray for them. Because for the grace of God,
it would be me. That's the only reason. It's
not the other way around. Effectual, fervent prayer. Christ
the righteous prayed, and yet in context, And he talks about
Elijah, verse 17, a man of like passions as we are. He's just
a man. What he's saying there is he's
just a man. He's subject to sin and infirmities and faults. He
was a faulty man. He's just a man. Elijah, Elisha,
Moses, Noah, all these men, Daniel, they were not supermen. They
were not sinless people. Sinless men. No, no. I'll tell
you this about them. They were fervent in prayer. And so this is something that
James is telling us that we might not know much about. They were
so fervent in prayer. Like Jacob all night long said,
I'm not going to let you go until you bless me. Fervent means fevered. Feverish. Earnest. It's not talking about brief,
sketchy. You know, I prayed about it. Oh, it's on your mind, on your
heart, all the time. Oh, Lord. Oh, Lord. All the time. Daniel was three,
four weeks mourning. Do you know anything about that? That's what he's saying here.
Effectual, fervent prayer. He's just a man. It's not the
man, it's not his prayers. It's a trial. How badly do you
want this? Salvation of somebody's soul. Rain. Revival. Revival is like
rain. He sends the former rain, and
then there's the midst of the years. Dry. Brethren, we need
lighter rain right now. Pray. Urbanly. Urbanly. Prayer with a heartfelt
desire. And in closing, look at this.
Brethren, if any of you err from the truth and one convert him,
Let him know that he which converteth the sinner from the error of
his way shall save a soul from death and shall hide a multitude
of sin." What does this mean? And by the way, oh, so much false
doctrine comes from these verses. So much false doctrine, Catholic
doctrine, Catholicism, holy oils, forgiveness of sins. They claim
that men have the power to forgive sins from these verses. and from
what the Lord said to the apostles only, and holy anointing oil,
and forgiveness of sins, and confessing your sins one to another
that were confessed to a priest. That's false doctrine. That's
wrong. That's Catholic doctrine. That's
not what they say. Pentecostals say the same thing.
All false. Error. And we can't convert anybody
in that way either. It says, verse 19, if any of
you err from the truth, and I want to convert him. The truth is,
and this is the best I can do with it. The truth is both doctrine
and conduct. It's faith in Christ and Christ
in you. Belief and trust in Christ and
Christ created in you. Attitude. Conduct of Christ.
Faith in Christ. Our Lord summed it up this way,
in John 3, verse 21, "...he that doeth the truth cometh to the
light, that his deeds might be made manifest that they are wrought
in God." Doing the truth means to trust Christ, to believe Him
and do what He says. Christ is the truth. And if any error from the truth
There's error in doctrine and there's error in attitude and
conduct. Then you do error from the doctrine. The Galatians, the error of the
Galatians was law. You know the Galatians, they
went to the law and said, we're going to start keeping the law.
Some men crept in and said, you have to keep the law to be sanctified
and all that. That's error. from the truth.
We're sanctified in Christ and Christ alone. Then there's error
of conduct and attitude and all that that we need converted from. Simon Peter erred in conduct
and attitude. He was lifted up with pride.
You remember? The Lord said, all of you are going to forsake
me. All of you. And Simon Peter said, not me. Oh boy, that's self-righteousness. He said, they may, but not me. Who was first? Like when the
Lord said, all of you shall first deny Me, and they began, every
man, to ask, to say, Lord, is it I? Is it I? Is it I? That's what we all ought to do.
None of them said, is it Judas? Is it Judas? They all said, is
it I? That's the way we should be. But Simon Peter said, no,
it's not me. Lord showed him that. Brought him down hard. Brought
him down hard. And later the Lord said, Satan,
that desire to sift you like wheat, Simon Peter, he said,
but I prayed for you. This effectual, fervent prayer
of mine is that your faith fail not. And then he said, when you're
converted, Strengthen the brethren. Don't raise yourself up above
them because you're worse. You're a faulty man. And now
when you're converted from this, when He turns you from this error
in conduct and attitude about yourself and about them, you
strengthen your brethren. And you'd be thankful that you're
just part of them. Paul said that. Oh, I'm not worthy
to be called an apostle. I'm less than the least of all
the saints. I'm the chief of sinners. I'm just thankful to
be a part of this, of these beloved, lovely saints. Let him know, he that converted
the sinner, and this is done by preaching, teaching, loving
one another, prayer, prayer, prayer, prayer. Oh my, the book
of James. I hope you've been blessed by
it. The half wasn't told. Oh my,
here's the things He taught us. Oh my, and here's our prayer.
It should be our prayer. Lord, give me wisdom. Give me patience. Give me faith. Stop my mouth. Don't let my profession be word
only, but let it be in deed and in truth. And Lord, let me realize
my faults and let me pray, pray, pray, draw nigh unto you and
pray for my breakthrough. Amen.