James Part 11

James 5:1-12. James 5 brings the epistle to a powerful and sobering conclusion. The themes introduced earlier, economic inequity, endurance under trial, integrity of speech, humility, and faith, now converge. James speaks with the voice of a covenant prophet, announcing judgment on oppressive wealth, calling the faithful to patient endurance, and grounding the community’s hope in prayer and restoration. The chapter reflects deep continuity with Israel’s prophetic tradition and the teaching of Jesus, especially His warnings regarding wealth, judgment, and readiness for the coming of the Lord. Give a listen. 

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Welcome to the Messiah in Life podcast. This series on the Epistle of James is taught by Bishop Justin D. Elwell of Restoration Fellowship International, who also serves as the Messianic Rabbi of Messiah Congregation in Washington Mills, New York. From our congregational home, we invite you into a rich and practical study of one of the most direct and challenging writings in the New Testament. Over the coming months, each episode will carefully examine James's call to a living faith, a faith that endures trials, governs the tongue, pursues wisdom, and expresses itself through righteous action. Rooted in the scriptures of Israel and the teachings of Messiah Jesus. This study brings the message of James into clear focus for life today, forming disciples marked by integrity, mercy, and spiritual maturity. Thank you for joining us. Now pour yourself a tea or coffee, and may the word we hear shape the lives we live.

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James chapter 5, beginning verse 1. Come now, you rich, weeping and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you, and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days. Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you. This is God's word. So the chapter begins with a very sobering rebuke. It's incredibly powerful. The language is prophetic, the language is um echoes or is reminiscent of that of Messiah. But as we look at chapter five, it doesn't remain here. He doesn't hold this theme throughout the rest of the chapter. And we'll we'll pick up that on that in a moment. But the themes that we've seen introduced from the beginning, from chapter one, are touched upon in this chapter as he's beginning his conclusion. Of course, he's talked about economic um disparity or injustice, uh, endurance under trial, integrity of speech, uh, walking upright in faith, being a person of integrity, um, embodying the faith. And all of this now converges, particularly in the second part of the chapter that we'll discuss next week. So he speaks with the voice of a covenant prophet. He's speaking from within covenant. And in that, he's speaking very faithfully. Now, from that, he begins to lay the measure of God's word. As scripture is often considered to be a mirror. Um, as is so often said, you can read the word of God, but do you allow the word of God to read you? And from that, do we make course corrections? Do we examine ourselves, uh, as Paul says, examine ourselves to see that we're of the faith? Are we living consistently with our calling, with our calling in Messiah? So he's announcing judgment specifically against the wealthy. And we'll we'll talk about that in more depth in just a moment. But the oppression that often comes from the wealthy, um, calling the faithful the patient endurance, long suffering. Literally, the way it's laid out in the Greek is a length of suffering, it's a period of time where you're enduring. So he's grounding the community's hope in prayer, as we'll see next week, and in restoration, the power of restoration. And there's a beautiful and touching moment in this in the second part of the chapter when he talks about anointing the sick. And of course, we anoint the sick here uh as we do in hospital visitations and so on. But there is a beautiful purpose to that that goes beyond the usual medical uh or faith action. So we'll talk about that next week as well. So James speaks from within the prophetic tradition of the Bible, of scripture, of the word of God, and specifically, of course, within Israel's prophetic um tradition. And of course, he's referencing the teachings of Messiah, of his brother Yeshua, especially the warnings regarding wealth, judgment that is to come in readiness for the coming of the Lord. And that's an expectation that we all live in. There's a lot of discussion about did the end of days begin 2,000 years ago? Did they jump the gun on that? They were living within an expectation that all of us should live in, and that is an awareness and a preparedness to be watchful, to be mindful that the Lord will return. So, and because we can be called out of here before, right? We can graduate, we can have our upward graduation before he returns, we always have to live in a condition of preparedness. Are we living the faith? Let's not wait till the last moment to try to squeeze everything in, but let's live faithfully while we are here. So he opens and it's really think about the quest for wealth. Everybody wants not just to be comfortable, but you know, we look at the the elite, the very, very wealthiest of the wealthy, and we say, wow, what wouldn't that be something? You know, wouldn't that be amazing to, you know, all I see, and it's it's sad, and I it's probably just a condition of my uh my need to meticulously manage everything. I see uh you know, I see a hundred-foot yacht that cost a billion dollars or a hundred million dollars or something, and all I'm thinking is that's gonna take a lot of money to take care of. I don't want that type of headache. I know it's got four engines, and those are three too many. I you know, I don't want that type of headache. You know, it's uh going into uh a very large church uh building was being made available, and somebody said to me, He said, Wouldn't this be amazing? And I said, I'm looking at the roof, and that's a $120,000 roof without blinking. I'm not, I don't, you know, I'm just seeing the headaches of the place. Actually, more than that, because it's more than it's probably three times, it's probably closer to $200,000 roof if you are, if you find no other issues. So think about that with what James says. Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. Now, is it coming upon them because they're rich? No. It's coming upon them because of the direction of their faith. It's coming upon them because they have entered into the sphere of faith, but the sphere of faith really hasn't entered into them. It hasn't changed them. And that's what he is pointing out. Your riches are rotted, your garments are moth-eaten, your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you, and will eat your flesh like fire. I mean, that's such prophetic language. It's incredibly prophetic language. So when we think back to Messiah's warning in Matthew 6, and uh, you know, store up for yourself treasures, you know. Where are we storing our treasures? What are the quality of our treasures? What are we, what do we treasure above all? Where is our heart? Are we storing up treasures for ourselves that can be robbed, that can be rotted, that can be destroyed? Or because all of this creation, all of creation is going to be renewed. It's not going to be renewed kindly, it's going to be renewed by fire. It's going to be renewed so that everything that is not of him is melted away, is gone. So our gold that we have tucked away hidden, this is my precious, you know, it's going to be gone. But the treasure that is in heaven, the treasure that we set in the presence of the Lord, that is beyond the reach of the robber, it's beyond the reach of the moth, it's beyond the reach of the rust and the corrosion. And that will not um eat our flesh like fire. So if we're trusting in that, what is the end? What is the warning that he's here that he's saying? What you are trusting in, where you have set your heart, will be consumed by fire. What on the day of the Lord? So, and that's what he is. You've laid up treasure in the last days. That's literally by definition what we call eschatological. It's dealing with the end things. So you've laid up treasure, imagining that those days will not come upon us. You know, that's way off in the future. I don't need to think about that right now. And James is saying, take inventory, take stock, think, pray, be aware, be mindful. So we can trace this language back to, you know, we want to think to Amos, Isaiah, Micah. And as I said, it's not judgment on wealth, it's judgment on trusting in the wealth, where your heart is, the direction of your heart, your mind, your faith. And it's he's specifically correcting, if we think about this, behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you have kept back by fraud, they labored for the day, and you said, Oh, I don't have the money right now. It's in the bank. Oh, you didn't do a nice enough job, you need to come back tomorrow. However, whatever the fraud was, it's crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. Now, it's not just the ears of the Lord, it's the Lord of hosts. And why is it a Lord of hosts? Again, it's an eschatological statement. When the Lord appears with the hosts of heaven, this is what has heard, that whole vision of the Lord's return, that is who is coming to avenge the harvester that you've withhold the uh wages from. Pretty stirring, pretty stirring for sure. So they protected their wealth, their property by unjust means, uh, immorally, unethically. So the image of rotting riches and corroded gold remains, uh recalls the teachings of Messiah. Do not lay up for yourself teachings on earth or treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy. So James is speaking specifically to the sins of hoarding, defrauding, labor, uh, defrauding laborers and living in self-indulgence while others suffer. Oh, you didn't quite do that right. I don't have the money right now, but I'm gonna go in and eat with my family while you go home. Remember, most day laborers at this time, they were paid their wage, and that's what scripture tells us, Deuteronomy, you have to pay the laborer at the end of the day. Always drove me crazy when we would hire someone to work and they say, Oh, I'll send you a bill. I'm like, I need to pay you right now. I need to pay you now. Um they're withholding while the family that the laborer is returning to might not eat that night. So you're living in luxury and you're sending the laborer home not only so he can't eat, but his family cannot eat. So the wages cry out, and of course, this is taking our minds back to Exodus, the suffering of the children of Israel in Egypt, where the voices of those suffering, the voices of those in bondage, the voices of those enslaved, the voices of those who were uh out of wind, out of breath, rise up before the Lord, they're exhausted. So God hears the cries of the oppressed. That's the warning, it's the prophetic warning. Don't think that you are outsmarting him. Don't think that for a moment he is not paying attention because he is. So the economic injustice that's happening here, he is putting in the category of a theological um offense. And the Torah bears witness to this. So why is it a theological offense? Because the Lord has commanded specific uh regulations regarding the payment of those who are working for you, um, remaining open-handed towards your neighbor, taking care of those who are in need, so on and so forth. So it is a theological offense. It shows us that their theology is not in line with where it should be. They're not thinking about the Lord. What is the will of God in this instance? What is the will of the Father in this instance? So it is a theological problem, and it's a problem that needs to be addressed, and he certainly is addressing it. So condemning the righteous, uh, you have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. That's every cardiologist's nightmare verse, right? You fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. Well, and there's there's imagery that's happening here. Of course, we think of the fatted calf, right? We think of the celebration that comes from the fatted calf. But here, their hearts are fattened because they have, again, misdirected their faith. And the days of slaughter, that's the day of judgment. It's the day of judgment. You have condemned and murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you. Now, there's a couple of ways that we understand this. The wealthy are condemning and murdering um the righteous person. It's a definite article, uh, the righteous or the or the just. So there's two ways that the commentators have looked at this. It could be speaking directly to the exploited uh believers, the brothers and sisters of the Lord. Uh you know, it's always sad when you find out that someone hired a brother or sister in the Lord to do work, and for whatever reason, they were not paid in a manner that they should, or so on. Or there's a dispute that comes from this. And in this in this case, this must have been an issue that James was specifically addressing because he's done so so powerfully, so unambiguously. So they've exploited other believers, but typologically, this could also be referring directly to Messiah himself, the righteous. It's singular. Righteous is singular here. So they're the righteous one. This is speaking to a a definite, uh definite article, masculine, singular. So by their actions, not only are there are they afflicting their brothers and sisters in the Lord, but really it's an affliction or an affront to Messiah himself. And the Lord's not going to resist yet. Because there's a day of judgment coming. There's a day that he will bring justice where every right every wrong will be righted. Right? There are things that, you know, just a vengeance is mine, says the Lord. So we're we're mindful of the fact that we don't have to right every wrong. We have to we're called to endure faithfully, to be long-suffering. And the Lord who is perfect in his judgment will make sure or ensure that um there is a righteous conclusion. So let's move along. Be patient. Continuing verse 7. I'll read through verse 11. Be patient, therefore, brothers. Now we look at the language a moment ago, you rich, weep, right? He's speaking to them over there. And now he's saying, Be patient, therefore, brothers. What specifically is he is he addressing the injustice that has just happened, the feeling that they have been taken advantage of, not only by those who are maybe within the covenant community, but also outside. Remember, we talked about uh earlier that they were, of course, um under Roman occupation, no matter where they were in the diaspora. Therefore, brothers, be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. So in verse 3, he says, You have laid up treasures in the last days. Now he says, Be patient until the coming of the Lord. So endure. He who endures to the end, Messiah says, will be saved. Be patient until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it until it receives the early and the late rains. You also be patient, establish your hearts. The fatted, you have made your hearts fattened, you've fattened your hearts. Now establish your hearts. Stand firm, be in the Lord, having done all, stand. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Again, live in that expectation of his coming. So we don't have time to sleep, we don't have time to slumber, we don't have time to play around. It's living with the constant awareness of his coming. And that informs the days, that informs the experience of every day. Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged. Behold, the judge is standing at the door. So he's waiting. As much as we are waiting, he is waiting. As an example of suffering and patience, brother, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Well, it went so great for all of the biblical prophets, didn't it? Every single one of them, they had a wonderful, rosy, happy life. Particularly Jeremiah. He really had an easy time of it. You know what I mean? So he's not setting us up for happiness here. He really isn't. All right. So as an example of suffering and patience, brothers, or long suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord. How the Lord is compassionate and merciful. So patience. Be patient, therefore, brothers, brothers and sisters, is speaking to men and women here. Be patient until the coming of the Lord. It's not a passive resignation. It's this is my lot in life. It's like we're not called to be C3PO, if that makes any sense. Maybe an odd reference. But uh, you know, C3PO is one of the droids in Star Wars, and he would say, It's my lot in life. Uh, it was meant to be this, you know, he's very pessimistic about everything. It's just, you know, his programming. But that'll that'll really go over well with different generation. But anyway. Um it's faith. Endurance. It's being faithful. And having that endurance that even when we are wiped out, we're absolutely exhausted, we are stressed beyond our capacity to reason, that we continue to trust in him. And unfortunately, today we see quite often when people cannot reconcile their reality with their faith, mainly because we might say they have not been formed properly, correctly, they've not been matured properly or correctly. Quite often people turn away in faith. Well, what is this doing for me? My life still stinks. What is this doing for me? And this that's the opposite of James's directive for us. Don't just passively resign. Well, here it is. I'm uh what I'm what why am I bothering? You know, Eeyore, is Eeyore better? Everybody know Eeyore? Okay, so um, you know, we're not called to be Eeyore either, right? So he uses, he turns immediately to agricultural uh imagery. Why? Well, because they're familiar with it. This is agrarian societies, and they were very familiar with the cycles of life that are um common within agriculture. So he specifically references the rain pattern in Israel, in the land of Israel. Um sorry, everything is beeping and booping over here. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it until it receives the early and the late rains. In Israel, predominantly the rain falls in what we would consider the winter season. So we have the earlier rains, the early rains that happen approximately what right at the end of tabernacles essentially. And then the later rains. So during that period of time, pretty much the rain that you're going to have for the year is is poured out, you know, it's received. So we have we have rainy seasons in life. Now the rainy season is is good, it's not bad. Why? Because it's not a drought season. Okay. We think of rainy days. Rainy days and Mondays always get me down. I don't know what happened to me, but apparently pop culture references popped in my head today. So is that the Carpenters, I think? Yeah. Okay. So rather than looking at it as being a negative, we have to see the positive in it. So we're not in a drought cycle. We're not in a drought cycle. We're in a season when we will be uh where the um where the seeds, where the fruit, where the agriculture, where the where the plantings, the vineyards, and so on will be watered for what they need, for what it needs to bring forth fruit. So the farmer waits for the rains, and this is helping us to understand God's timing, the Lord's timing. It's trusting in his timing. He's called us to wait patiently, to be patient, to endure. Trust his timing. I don't know anyone who doesn't wrestle with that. Trust his timing. His timing is always perfect. Quite often we act regarding timing in a presumptuous way, and we may jump the gun. Right? Um that happened quite often. You were trying to anticipate the right moment at a track meet. You were in the stop uh in the uh the blocks, starting block, and you're anticipating, you're anticipating, you're anticipating, and the ridiculous judge would know you're all on the edge, just ready to jump, and y'all would jump. You'd hop out of the block, and you start right a false start, and everybody had to go back, and you know, it just became a thing. We can't do that. We can't do that. So this reflects the you know the the wisdom of scripture that associates patience with faithfulness and humility. We have to be humbled before the Lord, yes? Humble yourself before the Lord, and He will lift you up. So being patient, being humble. This morning I saw very it was so biblical, it was it was quite striking. I was driving here this morning, and coming up by one of the sheep farms that are along the way, right in the middle of the road, just by the double yellow line, was a dead coyote. So he was coming from the right side of the road, the the field that the the the farmers have the the shepherds have the sheep in is on the left side of the road. And clearly he was impatient. And he hopped out and he was hit by a vehicle dead in the road. The sheep are sit uh, the sheep are safe, the sheep are fine, they're right in the field, they're literally 30 feet away from what would be a devastating attack by this coyote. But he's dead. So, you know, there's an image that clearly wouldn't this probably happen. It probably happened in the evening. That's when they're most active anyway, but it probably happened in the evening. And for he was so focused on what he wanted, which was to get a good dinner, he didn't pay attention to the bright lights of the vehicle coming towards him. How many times have we experienced that? We've not paid attention to the very clear danger that is coming at us because we want to get to what we desire, and we end up getting knocked around a bit. But it was it was just one of those images that you look at, you say, This is an incredible illustration for us today. So Yeshua employs um very similar imagery when he's emphasizing the kingdom on how we are to approach, consider, be mindful. He emphasizes obviously watchfulness, readiness rather than anxious striving. I woke up, I slept great till about three, three thirty. And then for the next two and a half, three hours, nothing. And it was largely just the list of a hundred things I have to do. And this thing and that thing and that thing. What am I ever gonna do? That nope, I'm never gonna be, I'm never gonna be able to do any of this because it's just too much, you know, and and that's just my mind would not stop cycling through it. And I was talking to some of my earlier men's group this morning, not the men's group here, but an earlier men's, and I said, you know, the problem with all that work I did last night laying in bed between three and six was that none of the things that I was stressing over got done. So none of the effort of stress and the anxiety about it did anything, except keep me awake, except upset me, upset, except bother me, and so on and so forth. But he's called us, he doesn't, he has not called us to wait anxiously like that. Trust his timing, trust that what he has set us to, we will be able to do. It might not be our time, and it might not be the people on the other side of it's timing. You know. Um we have to be uh you know, there has to be grace going back and forth on that. So the faithful do not take vengeance into their own hands. This is you know part of the warning. He's warned the rich, but he's also warning the regular. Don't grumble against each other, and so on and so forth. The judge is standing at the door, he's reminding them not to take vengeance into their own hands. Trust the judge who stands at the door, trust his perfect judgment. So we trust in him that you know what we might not be able to sort this out, but he will. We might not receive on this side of glory the answer or the resolution that we hope, but he will set all things right. If we think, um, I'm gonna turn actually to Mark. This kind of just popped into my mind. The Gospel of Mark ties it this little episode ties in with what we're talking about as far as being faithful. Mark chapter 9. In verse, uh, well, I'll be looking right around the verse 24 area. I think we all know we know the story. The father brings his son who has an unclean spirit, and he asks, Yeshua asked the father, how long has this been happening to him? From childhood. And it has often cast him into the fire and into water, destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us. And Yeshua said, if you can, all things are possible for one who believes. Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, I believe, but help my unbelief. Now what is he saying here? I believe. I believe in God, I believe this is true. But I would I would translate it slightly differently, and I know there's some who would disagree, but I would translate this slightly differently. I believe, but help my unfaithfulness. So you have a muna, you have pistis and a pisto. You have faith and unfaithfulness. He believes, but he knows that he's unfaithful. He knows that there's things in his life that are out of order. And he's asking, please, don't hold this against him. Don't don't hold my sin, don't hold my unfaithfulness against my child. You can. And he's and he is help my help my unbelief, help my unfaithfulness, help me in this. Strengthen me. Do what only you can do. And when Yeshua saw that the crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit and said, You mutant deaf spirit, I command you come out of him and never enter him again. And then he corrects the disciples towards the end. But that is the heart of this. I believe, but help my unbelief. I believe I have faith, but help my unfaithfulness. That's all of us. None of us have mastered this thing called faith. We all still need grace. We but he's vocalizing it for us. He's vocal, he's he's saying, Lord, I need your grace, I need your mercy, I need your compassion. I need this. Help me here, help me with this. And of course, Yeshua did. And I think that is something that, you know, but we can't resign ourselves and say, well, since I can't be perfect, I won't try at all. That's not where that should lead us to. It's we try to be faithful by the Holy Spirit. We we set our minds to be faithful to the Lord. But we recognize that we're always going to need grace, we're always going to have moments where we stumble. We're always going to have moments when our tongue gets the better of us. We're always going to have moments when our heart is deceptive. We're always going to have moments where our mind leads us astray. We're always, as long as we are in flesh, going to have that. Now, we don't pursue it and say, oh, as Paul said, that grace may abound, we'll continue in sin. No, but when we do sin, we know we have a Lord who will forgive us, who's faithful to forgive us, and who will set us on the right track once again. See, there's been too much perfectionism. There's been too much attempt and endeavor to make us all flawless. Now we're before the Lord in the Messiah, in his perfection, in his righteousness. So the Lord hears us. But we're going through this progressive sanctification where the potter's hand is still on us. He's still working this clay, he's still reforming the clay, and we still need to yield to the hand of the potter as we go day by day. We're all in the maturing process. We're all in a process of he's helping us to grow up. We all think we know what's best for us. Yes? Anyone ever have kids? You know, have you ever met a five-year-old that didn't know what was best for him? Have you ever met a 15-year-old who didn't know what was best for him? Have you ever met a 25-year-old who didn't know what was best for him? I think so. Have you ever met a 52-year-old who didn't know what was best for him? So we all have, all have this maturity that is a work, as I like to say, we're a work in progress. So we're not looking for perfection, we're looking for faithfulness, which is consistency in our walk, consistency in our characters and our talk, and we'll get to that in just a moment. So he anchors this entire section uh in the prophets, and gives us that example. Um, where does he say? Where am I going here? Let me see here. Yeah, verse 10. As an example of suffering and patience. Well, hallelujah for that. That's the way to bring them all in the door. As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. So he's recognizing that they were prophets, he's recognizing that they spoke in the name of the Lord, and he is drawing their attention back to their experiences. Trust me, they would all know Isaiah's experience, they would all know Ezekiel's experience, they would all know Elijah, they would all know um Jeremiah, and so on. They would all know Moses' experience, for goodness sake. So that's going to point out to us that here are these men that were called by God to speak to a nation, to speak repentance, to speak judgment, to speak hope. And by and large, they weren't received. It's not like Jeremiah walked into town, everyone went, hallelujah, Jeremiah's back. We're gonna get an inspirational word from the Lord today. Oh, it was inspired, it was just not what they wanted to hear. So these are our examples. The apostle Paul is our example. I mean, come on, you you model your life on our faith when we look at it is built upon the apostles and the prophets, and Christ himself is the cornerstone. We look at the apostle Paul, beaten, whipped, shipwrecked, bit by snakes, uh stoned. I mean, yes, right? It went really well. Thrown in jail. He sat in jail and he was so delusional that he believed himself still to be an apostle while sitting in jail. No, he he that shows us that he looked beyond the circumstance. Yeah, he was in jail, but he was still sent. In that moment, he was sent there. He wasn't sent over there, he was sent here. And so these are our examples. I don't know what Paul would make of some of our uh what's the word I'm looking for? I'm trying to look for a polite some of our belly aching. You know, I don't know what Paul would make of it. Paul would probably sit down and say, Well, let me tell you a story. I went out in the name of the Lord and they tried to stone me to death. So they they teach us to endure, to be faithful. So the prophets endured suffering, not because they were abandoned, they didn't endure suffering because the Lord couldn't rescue them. Remember, he's promised never to leave us nor forsake us. He has not abandoned us, and he did not abandon them. They endured because they were faithful. And we'll talk about that next week, dealing with that anointing or the anointing of oil, which I think ties back directly to this. So they endured because of the faithfulness of the Lord. They endured because they knew their calling, they knew their purpose, they didn't want it. Um, and of course, Jonah's a great example of that. The Lord's called me that way, and he's going that way. I think I'll go that way. You know, I think that's, you know, the Jonah syndrome is still very much part of our waking consciousness. And there's times, I'm sure certainly, and I love that you know, we don't get a resolution at the end at all. There's no resolution. And Jonah lived happily ever after. He ended up quite miserable. He didn't know why this, why, why, why the why, what Lord, why would you spare this heathen nation? Why would you do such a thing? Grace, working through repentance, 100-year reprieve for those people. So Job, of course, is often misunderstood as a model of silent re-endurance. He endured silently. There's a funny, I gotta remember how it is, but you know, the Lord took his children, the Lord took his flocks, his herds, his wealth. But he left his wife. And what was you all want to laugh at that, you do? And and what did she what what was her great advice and great wisdom? Oh, curse the Lord and die. Talk about an encourager. She had a real Barnabas spirit on her. So but you know, I mean, of course, I really think it is, uh I don't know if it ended up in the notes that way, but he's presented as, especially by uh James as one who wrestled honestly with the Lord, and he remained faithful. He remained faithful, but he was honest. He was, and the Lord honestly corrected him for some of his honesty. Where were you when I put all this into being? When I brought spoke all that, where were you, Job? How do you know my ways? How do you know my heart? How do you know my purpose? And that's the very convicting point. We do not know. How the Lord will use our suffering for his glory to be revealed. We don't know. We don't know exactly what that will look like. We don't know how he'll bring it to bear, but he will. And what is the evidence of that? Where were you when I did all of this? Where were you? You know, a science wrestles with all of the cosmic things that are before us. And has all, you know, it you know, cannot make room for the Lord to have done any of this. And they come up with black, you know, dark matter and black holes and all something so powerful, but we can't put our finger on it. We just, there's a power out there that's holding all of this together, but yet we cannot figure out what it is. So we we see the wrestling that Job endured, where he remained faithful. So James highlights the compassion of the Lord, the mercy of the Lord, of course, back in Mark 9. Have compassion, have mercy, help me, help us. And he's affirming that endurance is sustained by confidence, by hope in the Lord's character. What has the character of the Lord revealed? What is the character of the Lord revealed in Scripture? Is he faithful? Yes. Is he only faithful to them in history? Or has he said he'll be faithful to us now? So what is the revealed character of the Lord? Not what do other people say about his faithfulness, but what is his revealed character? How does he reveal himself to be faithful? How does he reveal who he is through the Word of God? So, of course, this mirrors the call of Yeshua to trust the Father even in the midst of hardship. And Messiah modeled that for us. When we think of Yeshua on the cross, again, there's a there's kind of a Job-esque quality to this because everything and everyone was stripped away from the Messiah. Why have you forsaken me? So the apostles abandoned him, or the disciples abandoned him, he's stripped of outer covering. Those who had celebrated him turned their back on him. He's nailed to the cross. The father didn't answer him. And then he is in a place of being abandoned or forsaken. And you know why he felt abandoned at that moment? Here's the thing: why have you forsaken me? Why have you abandoned me? So that we could never legitimately utter those words. Because he has he did not abandon Yeshua, he did not leave Jesus in the tomb, he didn't leave him in the pit. We can never legitimately go before the Lord and say, You have abandoned me, you have forsaken me. Again, his character says he will not do that. And Messiah has already endured that feeling, endured that judgment that we might try to lay before the Lord. And he's taken that to the grave. So we can never go before the Lord and say, You have abandoned us, you have forsaken us, you no longer love us. So moving to verse 12, but above all, my brothers, again, this section 7 through 12 is fascinating because again, he's now speaking as a brother. He's not speaking as the bishop, he's not speaking as the apostle, he's speaking as a brother in faith. So, my brothers, my brothers, my brothers, until the coming of the Lord, the judges at the door. Do not swear, he's saying, either by heaven or by earth, or by any other oath, but let your yes be yes and your no no, so that you may not fall under condemnation. So when we look at this language, of course, this draws directly from Matthew 5, 33 through 37. Do not swear, don't make an oath. There are two uh there's two different dynamics happening here. Um there's two different dynamics that are happening here uh of swearing and swearing uh and and an oath, an oath and a vow, we would say. So unfortunately, by the time of the first century, quite often people would take a vow, but they would do so in such a way that gave them a loophole out of it. The Lord does not forbid taking vows or making an oath. What is being forbidden is not honoring them, not keeping the word. And it should be sufficient to just say yes or no. You don't have to say, by the altar of the holy temple in Jerusalem below, I swear on this day in the year of the Lord to do this, unless it's a day ending with why, in which case I am exempt from doing such a thing. You know, so we don't do this in such a way that is leaving us alone. Our yes should be yes, and that should be it, our no should be no, and that should be it. Make it simple. Follow the kiss method. Make it simple. Because what happened? Um in Jewish and and Greco-Roman context, elaborate oaths, and I we reference that Messiah references that in Matthew 5, were used to manipulate truth. They were used to manipulate truth and to uh avoid or evade accountability. You can't hold me accountable for that oath that I swore and I broke, or uh because you know, um whatever the loophole was. And of course, the more elaborate the statement, the the more pious the person looked. So again, it was trying to rely on an outer appearance of being holy or being uh upright or whatever it was. And Yeshua and James. James, of course, would have seen this in the temple. He would have heard these words. Just get to the just get to the point. Yes, no. Yes or no? So James insists that covenant people should be marked by straightforward honesty. That's what he is saying here. Not to fall into condemnation. No, is that eternal condemnation if you are in Christ and you fall into this? Not eternal condemnation, because there is no condemnation for those, but you will come to correction. You will come into judgment. Something uh you will find that the Lord is going to correct you. And praise the Lord that He does. You know, correction is mercy, correction is grace. We tend to think of it in a very negative uh only a negative sense, but I would rather have, and I'm sure all of you would rather have the correction now that corrected the course. You know, the sailors talk about it all the time. You know, if I'm or even you know, even if you are a and I've I've shared this before, um, you know, it's it's better to correct your course a few feet away than a thousand miles away. Even one degree, and you're gonna be off hundreds of miles. I use this example. Um you know, a few years ago, uh you know, I would do these. This is before you know, before my thyroid slowed me down for a few years, but I would I would create these crazy bushwhacks going out from this mountain. Well, the trail's right there, but you know what's a better trail? That trail this way right there. So I'm gonna go a mile that way through those woods following my compass to this spot in order that I would then um re reorient, re-put in my new bearing, my new coordinates, and then I will go that way, two miles that way to go, you know, and then end back up in my car, you know, do this huge thing. Well, one day I, you know, I went from I I you know went up bushwack to the top of a mountain, trailless mountain, got to the top, set the bearing for the next mountain. But I made a mistake before I even left home. Because I didn't adjust for declination between between true north, magnetic north, and what is on your map. So you have to adjust in central New York, it's about 13 degrees. So I was going to a mountain that was one mile away, but now I'm following my compass because I have no line of sight because of all the tree, the the canopy of the trees. So I start following to the letter my compass. And I'm going, I'm going, I'm going, I'm going. I'm I should be there by now. Pop up, I'm starting to get some elevation. Oh, I'm finally there. I'm finally, I finally come to the base of the mountain. I don't remember, I shouldn't be this low in elevation, however. And there wasn't a water crossing that wide. And why does that mountain look like the mountain I was going to through the ch And I go up higher, go up higher, go up higher, and finally get up, and I realize that this is this is the right- this is it would have been here to here. Without that declination, I was going right towards the mountain I had just actually come from. Well, the one I wanted to go to was over there. So I literally and I saw some of my tracks in the mud, and I said, Someone else is out of here. And not once did I say those look like my finger. So it would have been nicer to go. This doesn't look like I'm starting off in the right direction. Maybe I should just take a find a place where I can do a line of sight reading here or bearing. And then I was able to get back on a different trail, end up about a mile down the road from the car, and just do a road walk back. So, but you know, that was a different walk of shame at that point. So, integrity. Making sure that we are following the Messiah, making sure that we are you know receiving the correction when needed. That's the grace, that's a grace. So James insists again that we should be straightforward honesty, our speech should um reflect the integrity of heart, and that the faithful do not need to embellish the truth, is part of the point that he gets to, to appear credible. So our their character, our character, testifies on our behalf, so that we should let our yes be yes, our no be no, let us fulfill the word that we have spoken. And so he is moving. This is the part, you know, as we move into the final verses of the book, where all of it will come together. So we'll pause there as far as the uh we'll stop here at verse 12 for this week, and uh we'll move on to questions.

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Amen. Thank you for joining us, and until our next episode, may the Lord bless and keep you in the name of Messiah Jesus. Amen.