Thank you for downloading this sermon brought to you by the Preaching Ministry of Liberty Baptist Church of Las Vegas, Nevada, Dr. David Tice. For more sermons in both audio and video format, we encourage you to visit experienceliberty.com. Also, for a word of encouragement, insight, and biblical inspiration, follow Pastor David Tice's blog at davidtice.com. So without further ado, let's open our hearts to the word of God. James chapter 5. James is winding down this epistle, and as he does, he begins to talk about the Lord Jesus Christ coming again. And this evening's message is entitled, Persevere Because Jesus Is Coming. Can you say amen to that? You look around, you hear about things that are taking place, and you read about things. I was just talking to Mike Evans this afternoon. We were talking about the things that are taking place in the Mideast right now. And it certainly looks like the Lord is coming very, very soon. James was told, James is writing, and he's saying to the believers that we're going through some persecution. Hey, you need to persevere. You just need to keep doing what God wants you to do. And sometimes you're going through trials. Sometimes it might be a financial problem. It might be a family problem. It might be an emotional problem. It might be some mental strain. It might be any kind of situation that you face because that's what we face in this world. The truth is we need to always remember we live on a rebellious planet. We live on a planet that is set on doing its own thing. We live on a planet that has rebelled against God and has a sentence of death on it. That's where we live. So that the world wants to do what it wants to do contrary to what God wants. Now every once in a while, if we fall on the same page that God's on, then we'll do it his way, but mostly it's just, I wanna do my thing and get out of my way. And that is the world that we live in. When we get saved, we surrender ourselves to the will of God. When we get saved, the world is heading this direction, away from God, and we turn around. and we start walking towards God. And the shackles that hold us, that bind us, are let free, that are binding the rest of the world, they're going this way, we're heading in the direction that God wants us to go. Now while we're going that way, and everybody's going this way, there's bumps and there's bruises and people are knocking us this way and there's obstacles that we face. That is where we live. We live in a world that's walking away from God as we're trying to walk towards God. And we need to understand that's just reality. And in that kind of world, there's gonna be, as I said, bumps, there's gonna be bruises, there's gonna be trials. We're going to face those things. And James has talked to his, to his sheep, because he was the pastor of the church at Jerusalem, and he's talking to these sheep, and they've been scattered abroad, and so he's writing to them and saying, listen, keep persevering, keep on doing right. Remember the first chapter when he said, hey listen, Count it all joy when you fall into troubles and testings, understanding that the trial of your faith works patience. And then he says, if you don't understand what you're going through, if you lack wisdom, you can ask God. So James is trying to instruct people as you're going through trials. Just keep persevering, and you can ask God, and you can get direction from God, and you can understand that God's gonna deal with those that are oppressing you. And he deals with that in chapter five, verses one through six. Then he comes down towards the end, and he's going to talk about persevering because Jesus is coming. Jesus is coming back. That is reality. Jesus is coming back. Again, if you believe that, say amen. The Bible tells us this in 1 John chapter 3 and verses 2 and 3. It says, Beloved, now are we the sons of God. Right now, we are the sons of God. And it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him. Now amazing, isn't that an amazing thing? We're gonna be like him when he appears. We're gonna be like Jesus when he appears. We shall be like him for we shall see him as he is. And every man, the Bible says, that hath this hope in him purifieth himself even as he is pure. That's a tremendous, tremendous truth. when I was just, oh, about 17 years old. I committed my life to the Lord. I drove a 1961 Buick LeSabre. It was one of those cars that had great big fins on the back of it. It was a boat. Back then there was no speed limits in Nevada. I mean, no speed limits, except in towns. You get on the open road, you can go 100 mile an hour and nobody cared. As long as you weren't driving drunk or you weren't doing reckless driving. They could fine you for reckless driving, but if you're on the open road, I came in from Boulder Dam one time, with a carload of teenagers, and we came down, we were coming down from a railroad pass up there, and we were coming down Boulder Highway, we were going 100, and that thing, that was an old car, but back then, it was about 1972, so that thing was 11 years old, and the shocks on that were just worn out, and man, we were coming 100 miles an hour going vroom, vroom, vroom. We were like riding the waves coming down the road. We were able to do that. That old 1961 Buick had no reverse in it, because it just had no reverse. It was one of those things that one of these days I was gonna get the money to get the reverse put in there, but then every time I went and found out how much it cost, I thought, oh, that's okay. My left leg was one of the strongest left legs in America, because if I wanted to go into reverse, I would park it. First of all, every time you park, you look for two parking spaces next to each other so you can park in and just drive out. So you do as little reversing as possible. If you're stuck to where you have to reverse, you're hoping you're on a hill. But there's not very many hills in Las Vegas. But I used to take my, this is the truth, I used to sit in that car and if I needed to reverse it, I would open the car door, stick my left leg out and push. and push, and I could get that car to move, and then drive forward a little bit, and if I parallel parked, it was an amazing thing for parallel parking. In fact, I was in the, the Sahara Hotel used to have an underground parking for its employees, and I was a busboy at the Sahara Hotel when I was a kid. and I pulled into the parking place, there was a truck that was delivering stuff for the restaurant that I worked in at the Sahara, and that truck didn't see me, and it started backing up, and you know those trucks go beep, beep, beep, and it started backing up towards me, and I couldn't do anything, and I'm thinking, I don't know why I didn't honk my horn, but I'm thinking, what, and I'm pushing, and I'm pushing, and I just couldn't keep out, and that truck went right through the hood of my car and left thing, and then he pulled up, and by the time I got out, then he pulled up, he didn't come too far, just left a big gash in my hood, about this big, and then he pulled forward, and then he drove away, and I couldn't catch him, and I was just freaked out anyway, so I was sort of sitting there shaking, I thought I was gonna get run over by a truck. That would be the end of my ministry career. And I'd just gotten saved. Anyway, the point is, after I got saved, All that was just for fun. Now, after I got saved, I got a, I got, you know, man, thinking about the Lord coming back, and man, I wanted to tell everybody about Jesus coming back. In fact, a preacher had preached the night that I committed my life to the Lord. A preacher had preached on the second coming of Christ. And I found this little thing, this little sticker, and I put it on where the ashtray was in my car, because I wasn't using that, and put it there, and it said, it said, warning, Jesus may come at any moment, driver will disappear. And that was there for people that drove in the car. So that was a little warning thing and I had it there for fun. And I have a nephew who at that time was about five years old, maybe four or five years old. But I drove over to see my brother and I parked out in front of his house. As I was parked out there, I was cleaning out my car, and I asked if I could use their vacuum and clean out the car, and they said yeah. So I was there for some reason cleaning out my car. My little nephew came out, his name was Kenny James, and Kenny came out and was watching me. And he's looking at everything I'm doing. And you know how little kids, they just ask questions. What's this, what's this, what's this, what's this? He looked up at that thing and he said, what's that? I said, that, that talks about Jesus. Well, what does it say? I said, it says Jesus is coming. And he said, he is? I said, yeah. He said, I better go tell mom. And he ran in the house until tell mom because the reality of Jesus coming was there. Jesus could come at any moment, and God wants us to realize that. What he was doing was, hey, running inside to say to his mom, hey, Jesus could come. I mean, he's coming, and you better get the house clean, because you don't want a messed up house when Jesus comes by. Can you say amen to that? And you don't want a messed up life when Jesus comes. You better be doing what's right. What happens is this. When we think about the Lord Jesus Christ coming, and we think about the fact that we're gonna be like him, and we think about the fact that we're gonna answer to him, And if that, Aaron, is constantly in my mind, I'm constantly thinking about that, if that's what I'm thinking about, what it does, the Bible tells us in 1 John, is it causes us to purify ourselves. It causes us, hey, we're gonna be good. Because Jesus could come at any moment. And that's what James wants to talk about tonight. He gets to this point and he says, listen, you need to persevere because Jesus is coming. So we're gonna read the passage and then look at our notes and see what this has to say tonight. Father, I pray that you teach us this evening from Your word, help us to take some truths here and apply them to our lives. And Father, I ask this in Jesus' name, in your name, Father. Father, I ask this in the name of your Son, the Lord Jesus. Amen. The Bible tells us this in verse 7. James chapter 5, verse 7. Be patient. The word patient means to persevere. Be patient, therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman, that is the farmer, waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and the latter rain. Here, he tells us this, in verse seven, I want you to see this, and you should follow along in your notes. In verse seven, he says, Jesus is coming. So he says, be patient. Be patient, the word patient again means to persevere. It means perseverance. Patiently endure without seeking vengeance. Remember he's talking to people who've gone through some persecution. They've gone through some tough times. They've gone through some people treating them improperly and they're going, they're not just gone through it, they're going through it. So he says you persevere, you just endure. Don't be seeking revenge. You leave that to the Lord. The point is this, Jesus is going to come. So persevere, keep doing it. Jesus is going to come. 1 Thessalonians tells us this. It tells us how Jesus is gonna come. 1 Thessalonians chapter four, it's in your notes there. In verses 13 through 18 it says, but I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren. Don't be unaware. Don't be foolish. Don't be forgetful of this truth. Don't be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that you sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. Can I make this very, very clear? The Bible tells us that when we die physically, our souls go immediately to be with the Lord. And this is one of the proof texts of that. The Bible tells us, Paul said, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. The fact is, the Bible tells us if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, That's what Jesus did. Jesus didn't die and go to sleep and stay asleep. Jesus died, proved he was dead by staying in the grave for three days, and then three days later he rose again. The words even so means just like him, just like him, them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. And he's not gonna bring you asleep. The Bible says He's gonna bring them with Him. Their bodies are dead and they're in the ground. but the soul and the spirit has gone to be with God in heaven. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first, then we which are alive and remain will be caught up. The word caught up there is, the Latin word there is raperio, from which we get the word rapture. It's not the word in the Greek, but the idea there is being caught up. That's where we get the term rapture. They're gonna be raptured with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore, comfort one another with these words. It is not just kind words to say at a funeral, hey, don't worry, you're gonna see them again. No, that's reality. Can you say amen to that? The spiritual realm is reality. First Corinthians chapter 15, tremendous passage about the resurrection. The Bible tells us that we have a body prepared for us in heaven, a spiritual body, and that when we die physically, that we are with the Lord and we are going to be with him forever and forever. It's a wonderful Wonderful truth. But the Bible tells us that when we're there, of course, we only have a soul and a spirit. God intended for us to have a body, soul, and spirit. Our body is corrupting. Our body is going into the ground. But the Bible tells us that body is going to come up from the ground. In fact, E in your notes follows the example of the farmer. The Bible says that he waits through the early rain, which was October and November in Israel, and the latter rain, which was April and May in Israel. He waits, and then that thing takes place. I've been watching. My wife likes to plant. She's a gardener. And it's fascinating, really is fascinating. I've never been that fascinated by stuff, but I'm watching now because she's preparing seeds, and I can go to the windows where she has them, where the sunlight's coming in, and I go to the windows, And in the mornings, because I'm always up first, I go and I turn on the lights just to see if another one's popped up out of the ground. And it's cool. I mean, these little things are in the ground, there's nothing, there's dirt. First they put this little dry, she puts this little dry nothing in the ground, it's a seed. It goes into the ground, it sits there, and you water it, and you water it. And then after you water it for a little while, you think, there's nothing there. I mean, I'm not that patient. But my wife is very patient, and she takes care of them. And what happens, this little thing pops up. And you see the shell, like the bean, she showed me the other day how this bean shell looked like nothing but like a translucent piece of, fingernail or something, but it popped up and now there's this thing coming up out of dead, out of soil, out of, looked like a dead seed. It's an amazing thing that life comes, and the thing is you have to patiently wait. You wait for that. It's not something that happens overnight. You have to wait, and you wait, and then a little green thing pops up, and a little shell goes flying off, and not flying off, but it gets knocked off, and then this thing grows up, and there's some things in the window of my house that are growing about that big. I hope they're not catchy or anything, but they're growing. And that all took patience and what God is saying is this, look, be patient, persevere, just keep on keeping on, keep doing what God wants you to do because just like the farmer waits, from October through April, he's waiting and waiting. You wait, eventually that which you are waiting for will get here. We've been waiting for Jesus to come back for 2,000 years, but I want you to understand this, we know this absolutely certain. Jesus coming is closer today than it was yesterday. Can you say amen to that? And he could come at any moment. And that's what Paul is telling us. Paul, honestly, from a human perspective, Paul expected Jesus to come back in his time. And James writes here as though he expected Jesus to come back before he left this earth. But Jesus didn't. That doesn't change the fact that He's coming. In the Old Testament they wrote, it's amazing how many times in the New Testament the book of Malachi is quoted. It's quoted because it was the last book to be written. and 400 years they waited and waited and waited for the promise of the Messiah. He did come. Can you say amen to that? And he will come again. Jesus says look, or James says look, Jesus is coming, be patient. Second thing he says is Jesus is coming, establish your hearts. Establish your hearts. Look what it says in verse eight. Be ye also patient. Be persevering just like the farmer perseveres. And by the way, the farmer doesn't just sit and wait. The farmer tends to the soil. The farmer takes care of the soil. The farmer does what he's supposed to do while he is waiting on God to do what he's supposed to do. So we patient, we do what we're supposed to do. We persevere. Be you also patient. Establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. James tells us, secondly, don't just be patient, but establish your heart. Now what does that mean? To establish your heart means to strengthen your heart. Now that doesn't mean start jogging. Though that would probably be a good idea, jogging would be an excellent thing for any Baptist to do. Just any type of exercising. Moving your arms or your legs while you're eating would be good. Any kind of exercise that we can do would be good. Anything to strengthen your physical heart, but that's not what he's talking about. When he's talking about strengthening your heart, he's talking about your inner being, your soul, your emotions, who you are. Strengthen your inner being. And that's what God wants us to do. Now how do we do that? Well we do that by studying the Word of God. We have to get into the Word of God just like, listen, just like you have to eat. I went home this afternoon and I just was hungry. You ever just go home and you're hungry and everything in the house looks good? I mean I wanted to eat and there are times you go home and and you know something's prepared, and you start to eat everything there is, and your wife says, I have been cooking all day long. And, but today wasn't that way because my wife was watching the grandchildren, having some fun with the grandchildren today. And so when I went home this afternoon, and I went home early because Mike Evans was coming over to help me with my sound system. And so I went home early. When I went home early, I was just hungry. So I ate corn chips and I ate some crackers with peanut butter and jelly on them. Now this is like, that's like heaven on a cracker. And so I ate some peanut butter and jelly and I just, I don't know where I'm going with this. So anyway, I wanted something to eat. I just wanted something to eat. Then we did have dinner and I ate that. But we need to eat. Now again, our problem as Baptists is we overeat, and that's called gluttony, and we don't preach on that, we just mention it from time to time so that we can say that we cover all the bases. But the point is, you need to eat, and you need to eat on a regular basis. You need to, in order for you to physically, now listen, in order for you to physically Be well. You've got to eat. You have breakfast, you have lunch, you have dinner, and some of us eat in between time. But you need to eat in order to, and you have to have a balanced diet in order to be stable physically. Now look, you don't remember, sometimes you don't even remember what you ate all day yesterday, or the day before, the day before. And that's not the point of eating. The point is you eat to get through that next day. You eat to get through the next several hours. You eat to get the energy you need every day. You understand that? You've gotta have something to keep you going. And if you don't believe that, again, you just stop eating for 40, 50 days, and you'll find out you don't have much energy. You have to have it, you have to have it. And you have to have that for eating or for energy. That's true with the spirit. If you want a stable life, you've got to be in the word of God. I had somebody say to me the other day, how do you do it? How do you walk in the Spirit? How do you have a balanced life? And I said, well, I don't mean to be trite, but the truth of the matter is you must pray every day. People say, oh, that's just a pat answer. No, it's the truth. You must pray every day and you must read the Word of God. You must have the feeding of the Word of God in your life. God established the local church primarily because you need a place where you are fed the Word of God, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night. The Bible says in the New Testament, daily they met together for the teaching of the Word of God. Now that's for a couple of reasons. In the New Testament, they didn't have the written Word of God for themselves. given by the Holy Spirit to the apostles, and then for 1,400 years, the average person didn't have the printed Word of God. In order to get fed the Word of God, in order to be taught the Word of God, they had to go together, meet together, and be taught the Word of God, because they couldn't, they didn't have handwritten copies. In order to have a Bible, you had to have a handwritten copy, until the printing press was, invented, and then the first book that ever was printed on a printing press was the Word of God. What a wonderful truth. So now we have the Word of God that we have every day. Listen, if you want to be established in your life, you want to have a strong life, then you need to study the Word of God. The idea is this, then I don't live for the flesh. If I'm doing what the Word of God and feeding from the Word of God, I'm not going to be feeding my flesh and living from my flesh. The idea is don't get wrapped up in the fears of this world. The world is filled with fear. They are filled with fear. Why? Because they don't have the assurance that Jesus is coming. They don't know Jesus is coming. What is this world, I mean, what is this world coming to? You could actually listen to anchors. We have a horrible, horrible thing that took place in Jordan. I mean, this is a horrible thing that's taking place. In the name of a false God, and for the sake of Islam, people are being burned to death, and now there's beheadings on the other side. This is a horrible, horrible thing. And if I didn't know the word of God, I'd think, and if I didn't know the God of the word, and I didn't know that God had a plan, I'd be thinking, What's going on? This is crazy. I want to go get in a rock in the side of a mountain somewhere and just hide and protect my family. But here's the deal. I can be established and I can be secure and I don't have to freak out because I know God's in control. Can you say amen to that? And I know this is all pointing to the fact that Jesus is about to wrap things up. People are in fear of so many things. People are feared that they're gonna lose their money. They fear, oh, what's gonna happen if the economy collapses? I'll tell you what, if the economy collapses, you'll be no worse off than you were when you were born. When you were born, you had nothing. You had your parents to take care of you. You don't have to fear loss of money because here's the deal. Your heavenly Father's watching over you. Your security isn't in the bankroll that you have. It's not in all the great investments that you've made. They fear war. Man, what's gonna happen if a war breaks out? They fear physical death. What's gonna happen? What's gonna happen if I die physically immediately? I'm gonna be with Jesus. Paul said to depart and be with Christ. Now listen, to depart and be with Christ is far better It's far better than this. I can be established in the truth that I have no fears whatsoever because physical death just gets me home. That's all it does. You ever been driving a long, long time? I've driven so long my legs start aching and I'm slapping myself and I'm doing anything I can to stay awake. You know, you get out and you just, if it's freezing outside, you jump up and down and get like freezing cold so you can get inside in order to keep your eyes open and then the heat blows on you and then you're really going off. I mean, and then finally you get home. After all of the, everything you've done, you finally get home and you say, oh, and you crawl in bed and you say, oh, it's so nice to be home. Then you can't sleep because you're so like freaked out, you know, and it's terrible. But listen, when you close your eyes in death, you're finally going to be home. I don't need to fear that. They fear insecurity. I don't have, what am I going to do about, what are we going to do? What if this happens? What if that, what if we don't have food to eat? And Jesus said, don't worry about food and what you're going to wear or any of those things. Just trust me. Romans chapter 12 and verse 1 and 2, Paul says this, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies, give your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service, and be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. The word established means to strengthen yourself and to stand. And so Paul says, look, think about the fact that Jesus is coming and let that establish your heart. Get in the word of God and think about him and live for things that are above and not for things on this earth because that will establish you, that'll strengthen you. And when everybody else is freaked out and everybody else is worried and everybody else is thinking, oh, woe is me, you're gonna have a steady, stable life. because you're doing what God wants you to do. But you don't know the trials I'm going through right now. I don't, but God does. And if you seek his word, and you do what his word tells you to do, and you're just obedient to his word, and you're submissive to his word, it doesn't matter what you're going through, God will strengthen you, and you will be a picture of stability to the rest of the world. And people will say, wow, how do they do that? How'd they go through that and stand? That's your opportunity to represent God. It's so important. Jesus is coming, establish your heart. Then he says in verse nine, Jesus is coming, and this is tough, grudge not. Listen to what he says, grudge not. one against another. Brethren, lest you be condemned. Behold, the judge standeth before the door. Take, my brethren, the prophets who have spoken in the name of the Lord for an example of suffering, affliction, and patience. Grudge not. Jesus is coming, don't grudge. Grudge means to groan or sigh. Don't groan or sigh against your brother. Don't groan at your brother or complain about him, love him. Well, he didn't treat me the way I thought he should treat me. Well, he doesn't care about me. Well, listen, God says to you, don't groan. Listen, you're not going to go through this world without having a conflict with a Christian. There's gonna be some Christian that doesn't treat you the way you think a Christian should treat you. That's just the way it's gonna be. That's just reality. You're not gonna go through this world and not get some scars from this world. That's just reality. The truth of the matter is, God's telling you, look, Jesus is coming, and he'll take care of all of that. He'll set everything in order. Well, what about right now? What about if, right now, just do what God wants you to do. Don't complain about your brother. Don't criticize your brother. God will judge us all. We don't need to do his job. See, Jesus said that all judgment's been given into my hands. Now, is there anybody here named Jesus? Okay, God has given, good, because God has given all judgment, that is condemnation, into the hands of Jesus. So if your name's not Jesus, and if you're not the son of God whose name is Jesus, then judgment's not yours to do. And Jesus can do, if you think Jesus can do his job better than you, say amen. So he can take care of things better than you. You don't have to do that. But you don't know how I was treated. That's okay, God does. And he knows the entire circumstance. So Emmanuel, he'll be able to deal with it with an objective, position, see, and you can't because you're subjective, and so am I. So he can deal with something, Joel, that you and I can't deal with. He can deal with it with a totally and completely objective situation. He can say, okay, here's the law, here's the deal, and so I better leave it to him. But what if they treated me bad? That's okay, just leave it to him because he can take care of that. Do you believe Jesus can take care of it? Okay, Jesus can take care of it, so I don't have to fret about it, I don't have to worry about it. Jesus is coming, grudge not. Jesus is coming, persevere. Jesus is coming, establish your heart. Jesus is coming, don't grudge. Number four, verses 10 and 11. Jesus is coming, follow the examples of the prophets. Look in verse 10 and 11. He says, take my brethren, the prophets who have spoken in the name of the Lord. These were people who lived for God, served God, and proclaimed God. Take them for an example of suffering, affliction, and patience, and perseverance. These people were treated poorly. Behold, we count them happy, which endured. We look at Jeremiah and say, wow, what a prophet. God just used him in a wonderful way. He had some tough times. Jeremiah was thrown in prison. He was thrown in prison. And the Bible says this, that when he was thrown in prison, it was not a place with a nice colored television, flat screen, with Cox cable. It wasn't that type of prison. He got thrown in a hole in the ground, and it was like a sewer hole. The Bible says he sunk down in the mire. I don't know what that mire is, but it's not something I want to admire. I don't want to be down in that. I don't want to be that, and I don't want to follow in his footsteps, because you couldn't see him, because they sunk down in the mire. The Bible says that finally somebody came and put some sheets together and threw down some old rags that he tied underneath his shoulders and they lifted him up. I don't know how many days he stayed down there. This is not a nice thing, but we think, Jeremiah the prophet. I don't want to be Jeremiah the prophet. I don't want to go through that, but here's what he says. Look, consider the prophets. Think about Daniel. Daniel decides, they make an announcement. Okay, here's the deal, Daniel. You're the leader of all the leaders, right underneath the king. You're the president of the presidents. You're the executive of all the executives for the king and we've gone to the king and he's made a decree and the decree is that nobody can serve any god or worship any god except the king for the next 30 days. So the Bible tells us that Daniel had a pattern in his life. And his pattern was that every day he would go to his window and he would open his window so everybody would see that he was praying to God. This wasn't to be a show off. It was for him to say, I'm not ashamed of the God that is my Savior. And he would bow before Jehovah God. And he did that three times a day in the same place, three times a day. So they make this proclamation so they can go and say, hey, King, Daniel's not obeying that proclamation. And so Daniel keeps doing what he's doing. And he goes three times a day. And now the king knows that he's been trapped. Daniel knows he's been trapped. And they take Daniel before the king. And I don't care. I mean, it's a wonderful thing. It's a wonderful thing to be delivered from the lion's den. It's a wonderful thing to be there and to have the lion's mouths shut. It's a wonderful thing when that happens. It is not a wonderful thing to be lowered down into a lion's den. saying, I believe God can deliver me. He may not want to. And have, I mean, as he's being lowered, can you imagine the, you know what happens if you go into your dog pen, what happens? The dog's up there, and he's smelling, and he's stick, I mean, can you imagine? There he comes, the lions come all around him, smelling his toes, you know, as they're reaching, whatever they're doing, as he's being lowered down, and he's, And we think of Daniel standing there as the man of faith. Yes, that's fine. Would you like to nibble on my finger? That's not what he was thinking. He was human just like you and me. And he's lowering down into a lion's den. Now it's wonderful when you're coming up out and you say I have victory, but it's not fun going down into the lion's den. You understand that? You understand the feeling you would have If they were doing that to you today, oh, you worshipped God and so today we're taking you downtown to downtown Las Vegas and we have this new arena we've built and what we're going to do is because you prayed, we're going to put you out in the midst of the lions and so we didn't have any lions so we brought in some panthers and they're coming in for you. What a terrible thing. The three Hebrew children were placed in a fiery furnace. It's a wonderful thing, again, to walk, now listen, it's a wonderful thing to walk out of a fiery furnace. It really would be a wonderful thing to walk out of a fiery furnace. Hey, how you doing? I came out of a furnace. I mean, I'm just really, I'm delighted to be here today. It is not a fun thing to walk into the fiery furnace. You understand, it is not fun to walk into a fiery furnace. I believe God, I believe God, but it sure is hot. I believe God, I believe God, but it's warm. I mean, it's getting warmer. The guys who were supposed to throw us in, they just died from heat exhaustion, and we're here. And that's what happened. They put the three Hebrew children in the fiery furnace. The Bible says this, they endured and we count them happy. The end of verse 11, behold we count them happy which endured. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, he goes on to say, and have seen the end of the Lord, that the Lord is very pitiful and tender in mercy. Jesus is coming, so follow the example of the prophets. Jesus is coming, learn a lesson from Job. Learn a lesson from Job. He did not realize he was on center stage. And I've said that before here, but listen, Job had no idea. Well, he was going through what he was going through. He had no idea that the God of the universe, listen to this, the God of the universe, you're going through a trial? Job was going through a trial. The God of the universe was watching him and said, hey, Satan, I mean, our number one enemy has nothing near the power of Almighty God, but he thinks he's something. And he's a pretty powerful being. God, the God of the universe, and Satan are having a conversation about one man on planet Earth. He is in center stage. All of the angels of heaven are watching Job. Job didn't know it. Job did not know it. All of the angels of the heaven were watching Job. All of the demons of hell are watching Job. Satan is watching Job. God is saying, you watch Job. I don't want, sometimes you think, when I think of this story, I think, I don't ever want God to say, watch my servant David. No, don't, let him watch somebody else. Watch Jamie Allen. Watch Kurt. Watch somebody else. Watch Arnold. But don't watch me. I'll just sit back here and do this little thing over here. Don't watch me. Everybody's watching and and Satan says well, I can I can I can cause him to deny you I can I can get I can cause him to curse you God says okay. Go ahead Wow He did not know that he was on center stage. Jesus is coming You need to understand if this is the final generation. We're on center stage. I We are the church, the body of Christ. We are his children. We are the light, the last light in this dark world before Jesus calls us out. Man, remember that. Remember the story. He persevered. He persevered. He kept going. He trusted God. He trusted God in the midst of, and by the way, he wasn't perfect about this. The story of Job isn't to tell you, hey, look, this guy was excellent. He did really good in chapters one, he did really good in chapter two. You get to chapter three, he says, okay, God, why are you doing this to me? It'd be better if you would never let me born. He starts questioning God. It'd be better, and that should show you that he's like you. You ever have your little pity party? Become part of the plum crowd? The poor little old me crowd? It's just me? God, why does this happen to me? I was always trying to serve you. I was trying to do what's right. How come it's gotta happen to me? Well, I'm just trying to do everything, and they always say things, and they were bad, and I was good, and I was good. The plum crowd. Poor little old me. Job got that way, and you go through chapter after chapter after chapter of Job saying, God, why? And then his three, it's wonderful to have friends too. Friends come along and say, Job, this happened to you because you've got some hidden sin in your life. You're a reprobate. Everybody knows God only does this kind of stuff to people who are wicked. What kind of wickedness are you hiding, Job? That's wonderful friends, isn't it? And they had three friends just alike. And they're old guys, too. They're old guys. We know they're old guys because Job was old and these were his old friends. And the young guy comes along and he doesn't want to say anything because the old guys are talking. But the old guys are just making it worse and worse and worse. And God has to rebuke the old guys who were criticizing Job. And then the young guy comes along and says, hey, maybe you guys aren't as smart as I thought you were, because you're older than me, and so I wasn't going to talk, but I'm going to talk now. Who are you to question God? And who do you think you are? And Job, who do you think you are? I mean, who do you think you are to ever question God about anything? If God wants to do something, God has the right to do something. Didn't he make you? Didn't he make everything? And then he starts asking questions. And then it goes from the young guy, and he goes from the young guy to God speaking. Yeah, Job, the young guy's right. Where were you when I made? And he starts talking about that. And can you answer some questions for me? And he starts asking him physics questions. And asking him things about the universe. And hey, do you know how that star's hanging up there? And you know, those kind of things. You know, why does the ocean end at the seashore? Why? Why do we have bounds here? Why is this that? What in the world do you have the right, makes you think, Job, do you have the right to question me? That's where Job cuts to, and I like that. I like the fact that God still honors Job at the end. I think that Job had got a little bit self-righteous and that God was bringing Job to the end of himself by allowing him to go through the trials. In fact, I think that Job, at the end, actually gets saved. But we won't go there tonight because we don't have time. I'm just saying this. God says, learn a lesson from Job. Jesus is coming. Persevere. He trusted God, and God, in his mercy, restored everything at the end. Everything. In fact, Job had twice as much as he had at the beginning of his tribulations. Twice as much when he came to the end. He persevered and God blessed him. The point is this. James is telling us here, Jesus is coming. Just follow the example of the prophets. Learn from Job. Then understand this. He says, Jesus is coming sooner, not later. Look what it says in verse 12. But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by earth, neither by anything, neither by any other oath, but let your yea be yea and your nay be nay, lest you fall into condemnation. Live, he says this, Jesus is coming so live a trustworthy life. Live a life where people can trust you. Keep your commitments. That is, when you say I'm going to do something, do it. If you suffer because you've said you're going to do something and you're going to suffer because of it, just keep your commitments. If you say something, if you say you're going to do something, if you make a vow, then keep your vow. Ecclesiastes 4 and 5 says, and when thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it, for he hath no pleasure in fools. God considers you a fool if you promise to do something and you don't. Isn't that interesting? Pray that which, pay that which thou hast vowed. Excuse me, better it is that thou shouldest not vow than that thou shouldest vow and not pay. The fact is, he is saying here, look, you need to live in light of the fact that Jesus is coming and you need to live your life to reflect his righteousness in everything that you do and everything that you say. Jesus is coming, so understand that and live in light of that reality. Now here's the deal. Jesus is coming. And the fact is, when he comes, there are those who have put their trust in Jesus that are gonna go to be with him forever. That means they came to a point in their life where they realized, I'm a sinner, and because I'm a sinner, I deserve to go to hell. And Jesus Christ is God. He is the Son of God. He came to this earth as the Son of God. He suffered and died and paid the penalty of your sin and my sin. He was buried. Three days later, he rose from the dead. He was seen by hundreds of people. And then he went back to heaven. Now the Bible says the only way I can get to heaven is by coming to him and saying, Jesus, I know I'm a sinner. I know that you are God. I admit that my sin is sin and I'm calling on you and I'm asking you to be my Lord and my Savior and my God. The Bible says, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. The Bible tells me I can do that and the Bible tells me at the moment I do that, he gives me eternal life. I need to put my faith and trust in him in order to get to heaven. That's the only way that I get to heaven. If Jesus comes tomorrow and I've put my faith and trust in Him, then I'm going to go with Him. If I die tomorrow, and my body goes into the ground, my soul and my spirit go to be with God in heaven, but one of these days the Bible says he's going to come back and my physical body is going to rise from the dead and I'm going to be forever with the Lord. So I have that wonderful promise, but I want you to understand this. Until you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, until you personally call on Jesus, until you have a personal conversation with Jesus and ask him to give you eternal life, you're not on your way to heaven. The world would like to think, oh, everybody dies and goes to heaven. That's not true. If you've not trusted Christ as your Savior, you die, you go to hell. You're separated from God forever and ever. And so Jesus says, look, come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. You have to come to Jesus, personally have a conversation with him, ask him to give you eternal life. And when you do that with him, not with me, but with him, when you ask him to give you eternal life, he'll give you that eternal life free of charge. If you've never done that, I would encourage you to do that today. As a Christian, if you're going through some trouble, you're going through some trials, don't let it cause you to grudge against somebody or get upset or quit. Look, establish your heart in the word of God. Don't grudge, don't judge your brother. Follow the example of the prophets. Learn from Job. Remember Jesus is coming and so just serve him. and understand that God is teaching you to learn to live for Him, and understand you're being watched. So be the example of godliness that's saying, I believe Jesus is coming any moment, and if Jesus comes, then I get to go with Him, and He'll settle all those things that I question when I'm with Him. If you're not saved, get saved today. If you are saved, trust Him and persevere, because Jesus is coming. Let's pray. Father, we pray that you help us to take what we've heard tonight and live it. Father, I thank you for the truth that you're coming, and I thank you that one day we will rest in you. And Father, we'll have that eternity with you. What a wonderful, wonderful truth. We pray, Father, tonight that you would Help us to take your truth. Help us to... to live it, and help us, Father, not just to be hearers, but doers of your word. If there's somebody here that's not sure they're saved, if there's somebody here that's never trusted you as their Lord and Savior and God, I pray that before this service is over, they'll put their faith and trust in you. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for dying for us. I pray, Father, for the salvation of anyone that's here that's lost, and I pray, Father, for the commitments of those who have trusted you. Father, may they just believe you and live as though you could come tomorrow, because you could, and I ask this in your name.