Well, let's once again seek God in prayer and ask for his help as we study his word. Our God and our heavenly Father, we come to you asking that you would graciously pour out your Holy Spirit upon all of us, that your spirit would take the truth that is proclaimed from your word and drive it home to our own consciences, to our very hearts, that your word would sanctify your people, that your word would also save sinners, that your word would exalt the Lord Jesus Christ. We cry to you for your gracious spirits present and help, for we are, as we have already sung, we are poor and needy people, We're not poor physically, but we are poor in ourselves spiritually. We are needy, very needy spiritually. So we come to you and ask that you would graciously exalt Christ and feed us from your word this morning. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. I begin with some questions. Did you know that there are many places in the world today where a common laborer in the fields earns the equivalent of $5 per day? Did you know that in many of these countries, 45% of the population live with such wages, $5 a day? and that this small percentage of wealthy people in those lands have a net worth in excess of one million US dollars, and that same small percentage of the wealthy in those countries, it's often less than a half of one percent, that they often, these wealthy people, oppress the poor in the same land. Furthermore, in more than a few of these countries, the poor that are being oppressed and taken advantage of are at least professing Christians, some of them genuine Christians, born again by the Spirit of God. and they are being oppressed in those lands by the ungodly, the ungodly who are rich. Now, before you start to question where is Pastor Smith heading in this message, remember that I am, by God's grace, a preacher of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I am a preacher also of the whole counsel of God found within the pages of the Bible. And this morning in God's sovereign providence, his word turns our minds and hearts to a very practical reality, which many genuine believers in Jesus Christ face daily in this fallen world. So please turn in your Bibles now to James chapter 5. Last Lord's Day we completed our study of chapter 4 and this morning we come to James chapter 5 beginning at verse 1. Turn there in your copy of God's Word or your electronic copy of God's Word and follow along as I read James 5 verse 1. Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches are corrupted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and your silver are rusted and their rust shall be for a testimony against you and shall eat your flesh as fire. You have laid up your treasure in the last days. Behold, the hire of the laborers who mowed your fields, which is by you kept back by fraud, cries out. And the cries of them that reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. You have lived in indulgence on the earth and lived in self-gratification. You have nourished your hearts in a day of slaughter. You have condemned, you have killed the righteous one. He does not resist you. And there we stop our reading of God's word. So please keep your Bibles open to this passage. And I'd like you to notice first of all, from this portion of God's word, the rich and their identity. Verse one, James begins, come now you rich. When these words are read and heard by us, the obvious question that should arise is, to whom is James referring when he writes, come now you rich? Now in James chapter one and verse 10, we see there that there were some wealthy individuals among the recipients of this letter. But the number of wealthy individuals among Christians at this early stage in the Christian church was relatively small. What seems more likely, especially in the light of who James was as a Christian steeped in the scriptures of the Old Testament, what seems more likely is that James was writing at this point after the manner of many of the Old Testament prophets who often addressed the unbelievers who lived around or among the people of God. For example, do not turn here, but Jeremiah 48. The prophet begins, God's words through the prophets, Jeremiah 48 1. Of Moab, not the Jews, another country, of Moab, thus says Jehovah of Hosts, the God of Israel. Woe unto Nebo, for it is laid waste. Cariathium is put to shame, it is taken. Misgab is put to shame and broken down. The praise of Moab is no more. Heshbon, they have devised evil. Come and let us cut her off from being a nation. The point there in Jeremiah is Jeremiah was speaking to the ungodly, unbelieving who were present in that time when Israel was also present. So in James we realize that he was very likely speaking as though he were an Old Testament prophet. He was not an Old Testament prophet. He lived in the New Testament age. But in James chapter two, verses six and seven, the apostle reminded the believers that the ungodly wealthy, the ungodly wealthy often afflict Christians. James already wrote there in James chapter two, do not the rich oppress you and themselves drag you before the judgment seat? Do not they blaspheme the honorable name by which you are called? And so therefore it was not strange for James in his letter to believers to address very directly ungodly wealthy sinners who lived in the world around these believers. But this now raises another question. What was James' purpose for the believers who would hear these sobering words addressed to the ungodly wealthy who are not there in their assembly? What was James' purpose for the believers? Well, I would say, first of all, he wrote these words to the unbelievers, but he wrote these words to warn Christians about the folly of admiring the wealthy and longing for riches such as they have and seeking to be rich. Consider another warning in the Bible which Paul wrote to Timothy. They that are minded to be rich fall into a temptation and a snare and many foolish and hurtful lusts, such as drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, which some reaching after have been led astray from the faith and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows. Paul warned the Christians about these realities. And Paul also said on another occasion, Demas forsook me having loved this present world. So in the light of these sobering truths, James wants his Christian readers and listeners to understand the danger of admiring the wealthy in this world and fawning over the ungodly wealthy in this world. That was one of his purposes. But his second purpose was this. James wanted to remind and assure suffering Christians who were often oppressed by the ungodly wealthy, he wanted to remind them and assure them that God will judge such ungodly oppressors. God's divine judgment of those who oppress the poor is actually a recurring theme throughout the scriptures. Even as we can see in Psalm 72, where we read, God will judge the poor of the people, he will save the children of the needy, and he will break in pieces the oppressor. So after the manner of the Old Testament prophets, James addressed the unbelieving wealthy who lived around and among the people of God. So that's the identity here in this passage of the rich. But now secondly, from verses one through three, the rich and their doom. the unbelieving, the ungodly rich, and their doom. James is not speaking about Christians who might be wealthy, as I've already said, but here the rich, the ungodly rich, and their doom. And notice, first of all, the certainty of the judgment of God upon the unbelieving rich in verse one. Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you. James writes in such a way, he uses a present tense regarding a future event in verse one, your miseries that are coming upon you. He writes this way to emphasize vividly the certainty of God's judgment, which will come upon the impenitent wealthy because of their grievous sins, which James will identify. In order to arrest the attention of these individuals, James begins with the words, come now, you rich, which sounds abrupt and almost rude. He then instructs the impenitent wealthy to weep and howl for the day of judgment is near at hand. From James' standpoint as an apostolic prophet, Though God's judgment is yet in the future, it is so certain to happen that he writes in this manner, righteous miseries will come upon the unconverted rich in that great day of judgment. So the certainty of judgment. But notice secondly in verses 2 and 3, the severity of the judgment of God upon the unbelieving rich. Notice that in verses 2 and 3. We must remember that that the Bible reveals, as do our own observations of life, that those who are rich and unconverted are often very proud and often very self-confident. For example, in Proverbs 18.11 we read, So what is that saying? The ungodly rich man or the ungodly rich woman, when they think about himself or herself, when they think about all of his wealth, all of her wealth, when they think about all that they have acquired, all of their stocks and all of their various investments and all of their hedge funds and all of these things. And what do they think? They think I'm, I'm like a strong fortified city, and no one and nothing is ever going to be able to conquer me. We also read in Matthew 19, verse 23 and following, Jesus said unto his disciples, Truly I say unto you, it is hard for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. And again, Jesus speaking, I say unto you, it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. Because of the pride and self-confidence of the rich, generally speaking, the ungodly rich, James writes here a rapid-fire series of short clauses, short sentences, which describe the severity of God's judgments upon the impenitent wealthy. Again, remember that the recipients of this letter were not impenitent wealthy people. Most of them would have been the penitent and poor. But James wanted these Christians who received this letter to understand God's severe judgment upon the unconverted rich men and rich women of the world. He wanted them to understand this so that they would not be envious of the wealthy. So James writes here, he bluntly tells the rich, Your riches are corrupted, literally rotted. Verse two, your expensive clothing has become moth eaten and thus totally worthless. Verse two. Your gold and silver are covered with rust and corroded. Verse three. Now you probably know gold does not actually rust. And James would have known this. James' point is that those things which normally keep their value under all circumstances are worthless in the face of the coming day of judgment. And note that James reminds his readers that the unconverted rich, indeed believers as well, are living in the last days. You and I are now living in what the Bible calls the last days. The unconverted rich may think that they have safely and securely laid up their treasures, which will continue to provide for them. But in fact, James tells them and tells us, they have laid up their treasures in the last days. For they were, even as we are, living in the last days. For the days between the ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ to heaven after his resurrection from the dead, and the return of the Lord Jesus Christ to this earth, these are the last days in which we live. and the rich who are lost in their sins." So again, there are wealthy Christians, but James is addressing the vast majority of the rich who are lost in their sins. They have laid up their treasures, their rotted, moth-eaten, rusted treasures in these last days, even with the return of Jesus Christ imminent. And that word imminent means it could be today. That's what the word imminent means. It could be today, it could be tomorrow, we do not know, but it is very near at hand. And if these impenitent rich people do not repent of their sins, which James is going to identify, sins of covetousness, oppression of the poor and needy, selfish hoarding of their wealth, then the very rust on their gold and silver in the last day of judgment will rise up and testify against them. Perhaps James had in his mind the words of the Lord Jesus in Matthew 12, 41, where Jesus declared, The men of Nineveh shall stand up in the judgment with this generation, and they shall condemn this generation, for they, the Ninevites, they repented at the preaching of Jonah. And behold, Jesus was saying to them, a greater than Jonah is standing here preaching to you. Perhaps James was proclaiming in a similar manner that if these unbelieving rich do not repent of their sins from the heart and in their practice, the very rust of their gold and silver will, as it were, stand up in the day of judgment and testify against them. Their mounds of gold all rusted in the day of judgment, standing in judgment against them, declaring, as it were, coins, of course, do not have voices, but declaring, as it were, you focused your heart and your life on getting rich. You didn't care about anyone else, and especially those who worked for you that you oppressed. And what is all of this wealth going to do for you now in the day of judgment? So underscoring the severity of their judgment, James adds that the rust of their wealth will not only be evidence against them, it will bring devastating destruction to their flesh. James wants all of us here this day to be sobered by the certainty and severity of God's judgment upon the impenitent wealthy. Christians need to remember that material possessions are fleeting and not worthy of your trust. Now James is not saying that Christians should not work, earn money, save money, invest money. He's not saying any of that. But he is saying that we need to understand that material possessions are fleeting and not worthy of your trust. Weary not yourself to be rich, Solomon wrote, cease from your own wisdom. Will you set your eyes upon that which is not? For riches certainly make themselves wings like an eagle that flies toward heaven. Furthermore, Christians need to remember that material possessions will not deliver anyone in the day of judgment and are therefore never worthy of your trust. Speaking of the day of judgment, the prophet Ezekiel said these words, they shall cast their silver in the streets and their gold shall be as an unclean thing. Their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of Jehovah. Or in Revelation 16, the kings of the earth, the princes, the chief captains, and the rich call upon the rocks and mountains to cover them, to hide them from the face of the Lamb, the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of judgment has come. We need to hear these words ourselves, who are here this morning. But notice thirdly, in verses four through six, the rich and their sins. James begins with the rich and their doom. But now in verses four through six, he speaks of the rich and their sins. He identifies three specific sins of the impenitent rich, which justify the anger and judgment of God. Notice first the unrighteous withholding of the pay due to those who work for the rich. You see that there. Behold, the higher of the laborers who mow your fields, which is by you kept back by fraud, cries out. the unrighteous withholding of the pay due to those who work for the rich. James states that the covetousness of the ungodly rich manifested itself with piercing cruelty when they deliberately withheld wages from their poor workers who mowed their fields. And withholding of the payment of wages justly earned was, James states, a form of fraud, a robbery which brought painful hardship to the common laborer, who often was living, as we would say, from paycheck to paycheck. And such practices were clearly condemned by God in a number of portions in the Old Testament. In Deuteronomy 24, we read, you shall not oppress a hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of your brethren or of your sojourners that are in your land within your gates. In his day, you shall give him his hire. Neither shall the sun go down upon it, for he is poor and sets his heart upon it. lest he cry against you unto Jehovah, and it be sin unto you. So notice that James tells us that when this sin of withholding wages is practiced by the rich, two distinct voices cry out to God for judgment upon the unrighteous rich. Notice that in verse four and following. Two distinct voices. The actual hire or the actual wages of the poor worker cries out for justice and deliverance from God. And the poor worker himself or herself who has reaped in the fields of the rich also cries out for justice and deliverance from God. James purposefully states that both the wages and the poor worker cry out to the Lord of Sabaoth because the worker is being abused by the impenitent wealthy landowner. But notice they cry out to the Lord of Sabaoth. Who is this Lord of Sabaoth? What does this specific name mean? Why did James choose that title? Sabaoth is a transliteration of a Hebrew word, which means hosts, H-O-S-T-S, hosts, or armies. And it's a word that is used in reference to the armies of Israel, the angels of heaven, and even the stars of heaven. So the name expresses the Lord's majesty and power as creator and ruler of the world, as well as the commander of the hosts of heaven. And by using this name, James points to the fact that none other than the omnipotent God to whom all the hosts of the universe are subject is the one who will avenge the poor who have been abused, who have been oppressed, who've had their wages held back wrongly. It's not the United Nations. It's not the EU. It's not some military organization like NATO. It's not the United States Congress. It's not an executive decree from the president's office. It is God who created the universe. God who is almighty. God who knows all things. The wages and the poor who are oppressed. They are crying out to the Lord of Sabaoth as believers in the Lord. And it is that God who will deal with the ungodly wealthy who oppress the poor. But notice the second sin in verse five. Look there in your Bibles at verse 5 in James chapter 5. The second sin is the selfish and extravagant indulgence of the rich. It's not quite so clear perhaps in some English translations of the Bible. My Bible has these words, you have lived in indulgence on the earth and lived in self-gratification. You have nourished your hearts in a day of slaughter. So with these words, James portrays the sinful self-indulgent lifestyle of the unbelieving rich. They wallow in luxury, extravagance, and immorality with a callous disregard for the real and extensive needs of the poor around them. Now again, let me qualify. James is not at all thinking of a genuine wealthy Christian who might have a large home. He's not thinking of that. I would say from the Bible we can see examples of wealthy believing men and wealthy believing women who even had property, even great property. But what James is focusing on is the unbelieving rich who wallow in their luxury, extravagance, and they have a callous disregard for the real and extensive need. the poor around them. James states that the lifestyle of the rich is realized in a day of slaughter, as when cattle which feed contentedly on rich pasture are totally ignorant of the fact that they are being prepared for slaughter. Death will come upon the cattle suddenly and unexpectedly, and so it will be for the impenitent rich. The day of judgment will come upon them suddenly and unexpectedly as a day of slaughter. But the third sin is the condemnation and murder of the innocent disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse six. You have condemned. You have killed the righteous one. He does not resist you. Having no means to defend themselves, the poor cannot resist the powerful rich and are often forced to submit to them without a murmur. Submit to their cruel and unjust treatment. And this is a reality in many parts of the world for real believers in very difficult countries. The ungodly rich, either through willful neglect of the poor or direct killing of the poor, the ungodly rich, they sin grievously. They sin grievously when they kill. the disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, either through neglect or through abuse or through deliberate murder. So by way of review, we've seen the rich and their identity. We've seen, secondly, the rich and their doom, and thirdly, the rich and their sins. And what does this all have to say to you and to me? Well, I begin with another question, and I ask, where is your heart? What do I mean by that? I'm not talking about the muscle in your chest that is pumping blood. I'm talking about everything that makes you, you. Your thinking, your emotions, your will, your life. Where's your heart? When a young man who's not married, who becomes romantically interested in another, in a woman, And we've witnessed this yesterday here in this building. Where's his heart? His heart is all about this woman that he is hoping to marry and then does marry. So when we say, where's your heart? Is your heart going after some other single women in the church? No, no, no, no, no. My heart is for this woman whom I've now married. Where's your heart? It's for this woman. Or the gardener who loves vegetable gardening. And he spends hours every Saturday in his garden to produce a good crop of tomatoes and peppers and all sorts of zucchini or whatever. And you look at him and you say, he's spending all this time in that garden. I would never once want to go into that garden myself. Where's his heart? He loves his gardening. You see, his heart is tied up with his gardening. So, but I'm asking you, where is your heart with reference to the things of this life and the money of this life? and the real estate of this life, in the stocks and bonds of this life, where is your heart? Remember the words of the Lord Jesus. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures upon the earth where moth and rust consume. We don't know for sure if James heard those words from the Lord Jesus' mouth, Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth where moth and rust consume and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust does consume and where thieves do not break through or steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. If your treasure is the things of this life, the bank account, the real estate, the salaries, your portfolio, if that's what consumes your mind, Your spare time, or even not your spare time, consumes your heart. You see, that's saying your treasure is here on this earth. But all of us need to have our treasure in heaven, not here on this earth. How do you get your treasure to be in heaven? There are probably some here who your treasure is here on earth. How do you make sure your treasure is in heaven? First of all, it's crying out to God through the Lord Jesus Christ and saying, Lord, I don't even know where to begin to explain or describe my life. But I know that this is not all that there is to this world, this life. There is death. My conscience tells me there is judgment after death. My conscience tells me there is a heaven to be gained and a hell to be avoided. My conscience tells me this. I may suppress that truth and unrighteousness at times, but I know I'm lying to myself when I do that. So cry out to God through the Lord Jesus Christ and say, I don't even know where to begin. Lord, have mercy upon me. Show me my sins of disobedience to you, my breaking of your moral law, the Ten Commandments. Show me my sins and show me that Jesus Christ, who is alive, is indeed the Savior of sinners. have mercy upon me." That's what you do to get your treasure transferred from this world's things to heaven above, crying out to God for mercy in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. But how are you as a Christian here this morning? How are you using your wealth? As those who are living in the last days, each Christian here in America needs to remember how gracious God has been to him or her spiritually and materially. Each Christian here this morning needs to remember that a day of judgment is coming. And in the light of these realities, genuine Christians in America must speak and live the gospel, and realize that compared to the majority of the people in the world today, even the poorest Christian at Trinity Baptist Church is actually very, very wealthy materially, and of course spiritually, when compared to the vast majority of people in this world. You, dear brother or sister, as a genuine Christian, are to be a good steward of the wealth that God has given you. You're not to be like these impenitent wealthy that James addressed, who hoarded their wealth who oppress the poor, but rather we are to freely give because we have freely received abundantly from the hand of our gracious God and Savior. So how are you using your wealth, dear Christian? Prayerfully assess that in the light of God's truth. But then lastly, This passage reminds us of the sobering reality that God will execute justice upon all sinners. He executes his righteous justice upon sinners, either in the sinner himself or herself, in righteous everlasting punishment in hell. or he executes his justice upon that sinner and his sins through the bloody sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross. There on that cross, when Christ died, God poured out his righteous wrath upon Christ, who had taken the sins of all of his people upon him. And there, every genuine Christian can have rest, that all of my sins, whatever they have been, including any misuse of my wealth, including any oppression of the poor, all of my sins have been punished righteously by God in the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. But indeed, God will execute justice upon all sinners. So if you're not a Christian here this morning, according to the Bible's definition, I encourage you, I urge you, even now, cry out to God through Jesus Christ and ask him to have mercy upon you, to save you from your sins, to change you, transform you, And if you are a genuine Christian, cry out and say, Lord, help me indeed to honor you in my heart, in my life, and in the way I use my material possessions. So let's close now in prayer. Lord, we ask that you would please take your truth and write it upon all of our hearts And we pray that you would transform each one of us from the youngest to the oldest by the work of your Holy Spirit with your truth. We cry to our God and ask that we, as the people of God in this place, would first and foremost endeavor to ensure that our treasure, our heart's treasure, is in heaven and not here on this earth. We cry to and ask that you would help us, your people, to live lives that are pleasing to you, even in the matter of what we do with our material possessions, with our money, and of course, Lord, with everything in our lives. We ask that you would use your truth for the good of everyone in this auditorium. In Jesus Christ's name we pray, amen.