in America and the world. I've
never heard of it being more affluent than now. I know there have been fabulously
wealthy times, but not to the extent of this, because there's
quite simply more people. And the Lord gives us here in
this chapter warnings. He warns the rich, but this is
written to God's people. This is a reproof and a rebuke
to us concerning riches, not to covet. It's an exhortation
to God's people to be patient, to wait on the Lord. And there's
a word, again, another word on the tongue on our speech, particularly
about swearing. And then it ends with a word
of prayer, on prayer. It all ends on prayer. Now look at verse 1, James 5,
verse 1. Go to now, and remember he said
this in chapter 4, verse 13. Go to now. Well, that is, listen
up now. Let's hear what you have to say.
Go to now, you rich men. You rich men, weep and howl for
your miseries that shall come upon you. Now, the Lord is not
addressing all rich people because some believers are rich. I mean, even rich in the degree of the world we
call rich, millionaires. There's not many. And I brought
this to our attention last time that the Lord usually makes a
person rich. If he's going to give someone
fabulous wealth, a believer, one of his elect, he'll do that
before he saves them. Because in order to get fabulously
rich, you have to devote your life to getting it. But the Lord makes some rich
whom He later reveals Himself to and saves, His people. There
have been some over the years. Abraham was very rich. Isaac, Jacob ended up that way. Israel, others. Job. Well, the Lord sure took
it all away from him, didn't He? But the Lord knows whom to
give it to and why. Because God's people are very
generous with what the Lord gives them. And their heart is not
set on these things. Nevertheless, we're still to
be warned. He's addressing here and He's warning and telling
the rich of this world to weep and howl. because of the misery that's
going to come upon you, because of greed and corruption and lavish
living, hoarding things for yourselves, that these things are going to
rise up into judgment and be a witness against you, he said. It's like, he said, being fattened
for the slaughter. That's how serious it is. He
writes to rich men, and he's writing to professing believers
here, James, isn't he? To the twelve tribes, he calls
them brethren, and he's writing to professing believers. And
there are many rich who assemble throughout the world in so-called
churches. Rich, fabulously wealthy, rich
people who profess to believe God, to believe Christ, and yet
are not rich toward God at all, but are laying up for themselves
treasures, boasting of their wealth, laying up for themselves
treasures, boasting of their wealth and not making use of
their substance for the kingdom of God, for the good of God's
people and the gospel, and for the relief of the truly poor
and needy. And this is spoken of throughout
the Old Testament. He says, Judge, he talks about
Israel, who many were very rich, professing believers, he said,
You need to judge the fatherless, the widows and their affliction,
the poor. He said, you haven't done this.
And you talk about being religious, believing God. He says, weep
and lament, weep and howl for the miseries that shall come
upon you, eternal miseries that await all unbelievers and hypocrites. Now, you know, it's not possible.
Our Lord said, how can a man love God and man? He can't do
it. He cannot do it. He cannot, He said, love God
and this world. He can't do it. He said, any
man who loves the world, the love of the Father is not in
him. A love for these things. You cannot know and love Christ
and love material wealth. You cannot know and love Christ
and have no compassion for the needy and not give of your substance
for the preaching of the gospel. which is the one thing needful.
Look at Luke chapter 12 with me. Go over to the Gospel of
Luke chapter 12. Luke chapter 12. And this is
the story, you know, of the rich man. And the Lord deals with
this. The Lord Jesus Christ brings
this up several times, doesn't He? The rich. And Luke, he said,
In one place, how hardly shall the rich enter the kingdom of
heaven. He said it's easier for a camel to go through the eye
of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.
That's our Lord Jesus Christ. And He's not exaggerating. He
said it's impossible. Unless the Lord changes that
person's heart from loving things to loving Him, they're not going
to enter the kingdom of heaven because that's idolatry. Luke
12, verse 19, it says this rich man, the ground, verse 16, the
ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully. The
ground. The ground. He was a landowner. Whose ground
is that? Who gave him that ground? Why
did that ground bring forth plentifully? He planted and became prosperous
and his crops grew and he had so much he couldn't fill his
barns up. He had so much hay and so much
wheat and so much, you know, and that was the commodities
back then. That's what men got rich in, not paper money. But why did his ground ring forth? God did this. God gave it to
him. Well, he said in verse 17, What
shall I do? I have no room to bestow my fruits. Verse 18, this will I do. See
this? I will, I will, I will. Remember
the previous chapter? He told us, oh, don't boast of
tomorrow. You ought to say if the Lord
will. First of all, give thanks to the Lord if your ground brings
forth plentifully, and then see how you can help His people with
it, and then seek His will what to do next. This will I do, I'll
pull down my barn, build a grater, I'll bestow my fruits, and there
will I bestow my fruits, that is, stockpile them. And I'll say to my soul, verse
19, soul, thou hast much good laid up for many years, for yourself.
Take, eat, drink, and be merry, and just live off this stuff
for yourself. God said unto him, Thou fool,
verse 20, This night thy soul shall be required of thee. Then
what? Then whose shall these things
be which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure
for himself, and is not rich toward God. Look at verse 31.
He tells us, his disciples, Seek the kingdom of God. All these
things shall be added unto you. Little flock, fear not. It's
your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Here's
what you ought to do. Sell what you have. Give alms, that is,
for the cause of Christ, for the gospel, for the support of
the gospel. That's alms. Provide yourselves bags of wax
not old. What's that? Salvation. A treasure. In the heavens it faileth not,
where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth. Where your treasure
is, you say, that's where your heart will be also. I've got
to read verse 35 and 36. It goes with the next message.
Let your loins be girded about, your lights burning, and you
yourselves like unto men that wait for their Lord. Waiting for the Lord. We're not
waiting on retirement so we can live at ease. We're waiting on eternal rest
so we can live in peace, in righteousness. Material riches, look at verse
2 of our text, verse 2 and 3. James 5, verse 2 and 3, your
riches are corrupted, your garments are moth-eaten, your gold and
silver is cankered. The rust of them shall be a witness
against you. It eats your flesh as with fire.
You've heaped treasure together for the last days. In other words,
the material riches, the clothes, vast estates and houses and palaces
and lands will all corrupt. Scripture says, the fashion of
this world passeth away. All the fine homes and palaces
will be so much rubble or stubble. Not one stone left standing on
another, our Lord said. The finest of homes. Go look
at the ruins of Rome. Go look at it. What's standing
over there? Just a few stones. Even those are going to be brought
down. The finest of homes and palaces, the finest clothing. Isn't this what our society is
all about today? Homes and riches and wealth and
clothing and food. That's what the Lord said the
Gentiles seek after, like Rome and the Medes and the Persians. All the finest clothing will
be so many rags. Money will be like paper blowing
in the wind in the streets. I believe this is why there are
streets of gold in heaven, the new earth perhaps. So we're going
to walk on it with disdain. Look at those streets, gold.
Yeah, they're pretty aren't they? Look at him. Gold. Oh my. And people that hoard
them, people that store them up instead of sharing them, The
decay of them, the gold and silver that rusts on the shelf in the
bank vaults when it could be used for the support of the gospel,
the salvation of souls, could be used in the assistance for
the truly poor instead of making use of their substance, For the
poor in the preaching of the gospel, they hoard it and cherish
it, and the decay and the rust of these things will come forth
in the judgment. The Lord will show them, look
at all this you had that could have been put to great use. Well,
you've got to save yourself. Go to now. And it says it's going to be
like it's going to eat your flesh with fire. It's going to gnaw
at you like a worm that died not. Oh, I wish I'd have never
had that will. He says, we heap treasure together
for the last days in a selfishness and covetousness, gather riches
and valuables and gold and silver for a rich and prosperous old
age. And instead of comfort, what
you're going to find is Eternal misery. Eternal misery. And this is not
the exception now, it's the rule. There's never been a more affluent
day than now. And this is what our society
and the world seeks after and thinks is blessings and prosperity. Just
listen to this a little bit. Riches are bad enough in the
world, the affluence and riches of this world is just unbelievable. Our sports crazed society, listen
to this, this is going to boggle your mind. of the NBA basketball, $3 billion
a year. The salaries of the NFL, $4.5
billion a year. Major League Baseball, something
like $12 billion. That's bad enough. Now, they
could all, you know, live on, like the rest of us, easily live
on $50,000 a year. Easy. Everybody's paying all
their other expenses anyway. Couldn't they? Well, let's say,
let's give them $100,000 a year. That's more than enough, isn't
it? $200,000. Give the rest away.
Start feeding the hungry. How's the homeless? You talk
about it. You talk about their brothers. God's not mocked. It's worse in religion, though.
It's much, much worse for professing believers. Billy Graham is worth
$25 million. Can you imagine in your wildest
dream, Peter or James or John or Paul or Thomas or anyone like
that, any true preacher, having just a million dollars in the
bank and not using it? No, you can't, because it can't
be. It can't happen. That's not possible. It's not possible. Sitting there, doing nothing. Franklin Graham, his son, gets
$1,000,000 a year. $600,000 is from what's called
the Good Samaritan's Purse, a non-profit organization for the homeless
and the housing of the homeless. He makes $600,000 a year. It's
supposed to be non-profit. And people believe these frauds. You think they're preaching the
gospel? Joel Osteen is worth $40 million. His house is $10 million. It's
worse. The Pope's annual salary, get
a load of this, they give him this much money to do with as
he pleases. $200 million. I'm not lying. Look at it. The Vatican has $17
billion worth of art hanging on the walls and in the vaults. God is angry. It's corrupt. We cannot be hard enough on these
people. James says, Weep and howl. And you talk about the homeless and the Pope goes
through all this. And verse 4 says, the hire of
the laborers who have reaped your fields and you kept back
by fraud. And it cries, and the cries of
them that reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of
Sabbath. In other words, most was accumulated, most of the
riches had been accumulated either by inheritance or greed and fraud
and oppression. That is, accumulated by not paying
those who earn these things for us proper wages. You can't believe Scriptures
that deal with this. Throughout God's law to Moses and Leviticus
and so forth, He said, Do not defraud the laborer. Do not. Don't muzzle the ox. You give
a fair wage to those. If they're making you rich, you
make them rich. And most people prosper abundantly
through slave labor. They work people for a pittance
and don't share their wealth with them. They become rich through
the labors of others and the vengeance. Their cries for vengeance
and justice have come up into the ears of the Lord of Sabbath.
And He hears it. And He says, Vengeance is Mine.
I will repay. I will repay. I'm going to give. Just do. And that's why we should
not admire any of the so-called rich and famous today. There's
not one person worth admiring. I don't know who we're going
to elect as next president, but God does, and He's the one that's
going to put them on the throne. But it's unbelievable. Isn't
it unbelievable to you that we don't have better to choose from And if people can't see it, they
do see it, but don't care. Well, you know what they're thinking?
Maybe he'll make us rich, or she. Don't care how corrupt they are.
Don't admire them. We never had any founding fathers
that were Christians, no sir. Thomas Jefferson, how many slaves
is he on? He became fabulously rich. We
go to Monticello and look at that, don't we? It's beautiful
and all that. That was made by slaves. George Washington. Name somebody. Rockefellers. The Vanderbilts. Go see the Biltmore House. They
didn't build it. Poor laborers built it. That's what God says. And that's
the way we need to look at it. Well, look at verse 5 and 6.
He said, You have lived in pleasure on earth and been wanton. You
have nourished your heart as in a day of slaughter. He said
it's like a turkey being fattened up for Thanksgiving Day. God
says that. Fatten for the slaughter, like
a farmer fattening up a cow to slaughter it later. Why would
we envy a fat cow? There is he that hath, the Proverbs
said, there is he that is rich and has nothing. And yet, there
is he that hath nothing and is rich. Do you understand what
that means? He says, here on earth you've
enjoyed soft, luxurious living while others toiled and labored
for bare necessity. You've lived in self-indulgence
and self-gratification, but you're like beasts fattened for the
slaughter. Our Lord said, vengeance is mine.
Now what's this got to do with us? There's nobody sitting in this
room that's really poor in the true sense of the word. Nobody. Nobody. Poor means you don't
have anything. Anything. You don't have any
food in your shelf. You don't have a refrigerator
to put it in. The blind Bartimaeus was a beggar. That's poor. You
don't have anything laid up for yourself. Nothing. No food, no
clothes. You got any excess clothing?
Oh my. You know, the excess food. Oh
boy. They say, I'm not rich, not likely
to be rich. Well, hold on now. We're responsible. on a smaller scale for what God
puts into our hands. Look at Proverbs 11 with me.
Proverbs 11. Go over there quickly. Proverbs
11. We, hearing this, you know, we
are more responsible. James, the last verse in chapter
4, he said, "...to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not."
Now to him, it's sin. Proverbs 11. Look at this. I chose a passage out of venture
for the morning message, Psalm 62. I didn't realize how much
these went together, the morning and the next message. Verse 23, my eye just caught
this. Verse 23, the desire of the righteous
is only good. The expectation of the wicked
is wrath. Remember that, expectation, desire. Verse 24, there is he that scattereth
and yet increaseth. Our Lord said, cast your bread
on the water. You're going to see it again
after many days. There is he that withholdeth
more than his meat, yet tends to poverty." Spiritual poverty. Which would you rather be? Spiritually
rich? Rich toward God? Rich in faith?
That gives you peace, joy, contentment, a place with
God in heaven? And I haven't seen yet what he's
prepared for. And it's not about stuff, I can
tell you that. or rich in this world for a short time. And with
riches though, we all know what this is like. It brings misery.
It brings worry. How am I going to pay for it?
How am I going to keep it? Or if it gets damaged, moths.
A little moth can ruin your best coat. A little rust. And so on and
so forth. Oh, my. Thieves break through
and steal. Well, if you don't have much,
you don't have to worry about it being stolen, do you? You
can go to sleep. Don't lock the doors. Come on
in. What do you need? My grandmother
and grandfather lost everything in 1929 with the Depression. They had three children, five-year-old,
three-year-old, and one-year-old. Lost her house, lost it all. Moved in with a rich man, a little
shack behind their house and worked their crops for him. Dad
and his sister and brother didn't know they were poor though. Wow,
they had enough food and their mom and dad worked hard. My grandmother
would take in the poor. She'd take in the poor. She's poor. If she had a little
bit, she'd give them. It'd come to her back door and
ask for a sandwich. She'd say, come on in, I'll fix
you dinner. There is he that scattereth and
hath much. You know, the church is not a savings and loan, it's
a distribution center. So are the people of God. It
comes in this hand, it'll go out that hand. In fact, the matter is, the more
we go without, the more it comes in. Religion promises these things
to people for that reason. And that's corrupt, isn't it?
Cast your seed money in the Lord and make it rich. That's wicked. It's wanting more
in. And look at this, 1 Chronicles,
and I've got to quit. I've got two more minutes. 1
Chronicles chapter 29. And if you don't have this place
marked in your Bible, you'll want to. This is one of the most
beautiful prayers or confessions in Scripture. 1 Chronicles 29.
David, the people of God are giving to the service of the
house of God. and the people were rejoicing
that they were able to give to the cause of Christ and to support
the Word and to build a temple and so on. 1 Chronicles 29 and
David is praying on their behalf. And verse 10, But who am I? What is my people
that we should be able to offer so willingly after this soul?
One time David came into the temple here and after here and
Nathan preached to him. He said, Oh, who am I? What is
my house that He brought me to this place? Why should I be so
blessed to be able to come and sit and hear the truth? He said,
This is the greatest riches on earth. And now the Lord has blessed
Israel and David with abundance. And He said in verse 14, "'All
things come of thee. It's all of thine own have we
given thee. We're not giving you anything.
You gave it to us. You loaned it. You loaned it
to us. We're just giving it back. Verse 15, We are strangers before
thee, and sojourners unto us. We are all our fathers. Our days
on earth are a shadow. There is none abiding. None of
us know. This is not our dwelling place. O Lord our God, all this
store that we have prepared to build thee in house, for thine
holy name comes from your hand. I know you've seen, you know,
whatever religion Whenever people do something charitable, they'll
get their picture put in the paper. Holding a check, giving it to
the United Way or some kind of charitable cause, that's wicked. God says it's wicked. He said
that's their reward. That's why our Lord said, don't
let your right hand know what your left hand is doing. Don't
let anybody know about it. God knows. And He pays back in
ways that are much better than temporal. Let me give you a few words about
– and this is to us, this is to believers. You know, at least
once every couple of years, I bring a message on giving. And this is to us, to bring a
message on giving. And I guess it's about time for
that in a few years. But Scripture gives words about
giving. I first heard it from my pastor. He says, grace, grace. It's a
great gift of God to be able to give. That's what David was saying.
We receive so much. What a privilege and an honor
to be able to return it for something truly worthwhile, instead of
just using it and abusing it and it just go out in the drafts.
When these things, bags that wax not old, treasures in heaven,
preaching of the gospel, said, my word won't return void, it
will accomplish something. The sending of money to the missionaries,
the gospel going out from here. We just don't know what the Lord's
doing. He's doing something here and
there. And us giving to that cause. Love. Scripture tells
us to do it in love. Prove the sincerity of your love.
Those who love the Lord and His gospel, it means He means more and it
means more to them anybody or anything, and they prove it.
They prove it. Mind you, I asked ourselves yesterday,
if this church was just going to fall down, about like it is
now, the parking lot and the roof and all, are we willing
to sell our house and see that it doesn't? We both
asked ourselves, are we willing? Does this house mean more to
us in our own house. That's love for the gospel. That's
love for the Lord. Love for others. Willing. A willing
mind. Not out of duty, but willing. David said, oh, you've put it
in our hearts to offer willingly. Made willing in the day of His
power, proportionate as a man has received. If you've received
much, you know, some people are given the ability to earn more
money. Well, oh my, they ought to give
great. They ought to give much. If you receive much, you ought
to give much. That's what the Lord says. If
you love the gospel, you will. And everyone, 1 Corinthians 16
says, let everyone lay by and say, everyone, everyone, every
single person, every single believer, this gospel is dear and Christ,
oh my, every single person, no matter what, no matter who, no
matter what you are, no matter who, Bountifully, liberally,
here's another word, liberally, bountifully, the Lord blesses
some and so they ought to bless liberally. The Lord is freely
given, we ought to freely give. Cheerfully, here's another word,
cheerfully, the Lord loves a cheerful giver. A cheerful giver, a willing
giver, not one who feels imposed upon, but just delights to do
it. The Lord loves that. Unto the Lord. Here's a word. Do it as unto the Lord. And another
word is not forgetful. Don't forget. Hebrews 13 talks
about that. Be not forgetful to support the
gospel. Don't ever forget. In other words,
first day of the week, before everything, before everyone,
before anything, before paying anything off. This is what we're
saying. How am I going to make my house
payment? Oh, is that more important? What
about this house paper? And we ought to be more diligent
and prompt concerning this than about our necessary food, because
this is food. This is bread. This is life. And some days it's really going
to be known. It's going to be known. When
all things come to light, the Lord's going to make it known.
This is written to professing believers. This is written to
us. And He warns us of riches. Next week we'll look to believers
to be patient. Well, just a few minutes we're
going to look there. All right. you