This morning it's my intention to finish up the book of James. My text is the last two verses of the book, verses 19 and 20. James, chapter 5, verses 19 and 20. Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth and one convert him, let him know that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death and shall hide a multitude of sins. The second question of our catechism, we have the divisions of our catechism. It says, what three things are necessary for you to know that in this comfort you may live and die happily? It teaches us that there are three things. The first, how great my sin and misery is. The second, how I am redeemed from my sin and misery. And the third, how I am to be thankful to God for that redemption. The fact is, as human beings, like Adam, we've broken the covenant, and we consistently underestimate how great our sin and misery is. We are sinful men, living among sinful men, and we tend to think of sins as those obvious things, especially those obvious things that other people do, but our sins are far greater than we can possibly imagine or know. We don't even know what true holiness looks like, for it's beyond anything we've ever experienced on this earth. We will not know the depth of our depravity until we see Jesus face to face. And that's a mercy, for I believe that if we could see ourselves as we really are, we would despair of all hope. Our sin and misery is so great, that there's only one hope for all of mankind, only one solution, only one offer of life. The only thing that could save us was the death and resurrection of the Son of God. If there was any other solution, would not God have spared His Son? And yet, because we consistently underestimate how great our sin and misery is, We read a passage like the one before us and our first thought is that it's teaching us that if we see somebody sinning, we need to go tell them to straighten up their lives so that they could make good life choices like we do. When we underestimate the depth of our depravity, we always start to think that the world can be saved by the law. If only people did better things. If only people made better choices. If only people obeyed God more, then God would be forced to bless us. That's natural in our hearts. And we read those ideas into this text. We will say to ourselves something like this as we read through this. You see someone in sin, you tell them what's wrong with them. They listen to you. They thank you profusely. They straighten up their life and everything is okay. You pat yourself on the back for saving a soul from death. As if life actually worked like that. As if keeping the law will save a soul from death. Did not James already teach us that if you've broken one commandment you're guilty of it all? How then can we think that righteousness will come by the law? and yet we must fight against it constantly. The fact is, even the best works that we do in this life, the works that we are the most proud of, even the best works, even after we are converted, are all defiled with sin and can never stand before the judgment throne of God. This passage is about the covering of sin, hiding it from the sight of God. So it cannot possibly be talking about the law. For according to the scripture, the law never covers sin. The law exposes sin. The scripture says from the law comes the knowledge of sin, not the covering of sin. This isn't about the law. This is about Christ. He says in verse 19, if anyone errs from the truth, the Greek word there is to wander. It's used for someone who's going the wrong way, who's off the right path. We get our word planet from this word because a planet is an object in the sky that doesn't follow the route of the stars. The Greeks noticed that there were certain lights in the sky that didn't go with the rest of the pattern and they called them planets, objects that wander. This is the same word. A wanderer, someone wandering from the truth. The encouragement in this text is to turn them back onto the right path. Turn him back. Turn him around and point him in the right direction. It's translated convert, but it means to turn them and face them the other way. Get them back on the path. So the question is, according to Scripture, what direction saves a person from eternal death and covers his sin in the sight of God? There's only one. The person and work of Christ. The perfect righteousness of Christ alone covers our sin from the sight of God. We know from Scripture that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. In our catechism, question 36, we ask, what benefit do you receive from the holy conception and birth of Christ? We are obviously going into the Christmas season. We should be thinking about the birth of Christ. What benefit do we receive from His birth? And the answer is that He is our mediator. And with his innocence and perfect holiness, he covers in the sight of God my sin wherein I was conceived. He covers my sin. When we wander from the truth, we're supposed to bring them back to the gospel. In verse 20, the word translated error is the same word that's used in verse 19, a wanderer. The literal translation of that phrase is, he who turns a sinner from the wandering of his way saves a soul from death. It means to turn someone around and face him the right way. Last week I spoke about Elijah on Mount Carmel. All of Israel was worshipping Baal. They had turned their back on the Lord God and set up for themselves images and idols that they bowed to based on a lie. God called them to turn back and face Him. That language is throughout the Old Testament. Turn around, face the other way. For example, in Isaiah 55, seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, turn his back on his way, the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord. and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. And then he says, for my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways. The reason that we can return to the Lord even after we've erred from the way is because his thoughts are not our thoughts, his ways are not our ways. He is a God of abundant mercy and abundant pardon, but we have to be facing the right way. The Baal worshipper, as I said last week, wants to stay in the pigpen, but wants God to continue to feed him anyway. So he tries to manipulate God through his rituals and through his prayers. But the true God cannot be bought or manipulated. There's only one way for the man in the pigpen to save his life, and that's to go home. There's only one way to save your life from destruction, and that's to turn around, face the other way, turn your back on your ways and your thoughts, and face the living God. Stand naked before Him without excuse, without guile, without pretense, because He isn't like us. He's abundantly merciful and abundantly kind. Yes, our sins are far worse than we can even imagine. That's why it's not possible for us to cleanse ourselves. Our remorse won't do it. Changing our behavior won't do it, for we have already committed enough sins in our life to condemn us to everlasting torment. No amount of tears can cleanse us. No amount of sacrifice is enough. There's not enough bulls and goats to save us from our sins. But here's the astounding thing. The Creator of heaven and earth who has said He is coming in judgment to judge the wicked in their ways and He will by no means acquit the guilty says, turn to me and you will be saved. Whosoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. The only way we can possibly stand before this judge is by faith, believing the promise. He has promised to cover our sins by the blood of the Lamb. As the hymn says, thou must save and thou alone. So turn back. Come out of the pig pit and come home. Take words with you. As the scripture says, and say, horses aren't going to save us, armies won't save us, laws won't save us, Assyria won't save us. If we put this in modern terms, I want you to think about this. The Supreme Court won't save us. Elections won't save us. Judges won't save us. The Senate won't save us. This is the message of the church. This is the responsibility of each of us towards each other. Turn them from the error of their way so that they will face Christ, the only Savior. The fact is, we too often get sidetracked. That's why this warning is here in Scripture. We are wrapping up James' letter to a church suffering great trials. They were beginning to forget the way. They were losing hope. There's much in the New Testament about churches forgetting their first love, losing their way. Jesus standing outside the door of the church of Laodicea knocking because they forgot that they were wretched, poor, miserable, blind and naked. When the church loses hope, they start to turn on each other. Separating themselves by class and by wealth. Driven by their lusts for security, safety, comfort. And so they became prayerless, graceless, faithless. And James ends by calling them back. They were wandering from the way. He's already taught that they lacked wisdom because they didn't ask for it. And they didn't ask for it because they didn't think they lacked it. I was reading through the book of Proverbs with my family the other day, and there was one verse that struck me forcefully. It said, the beginning of wisdom is this, get wisdom. Think about that for a moment. The very first step of wisdom is, I don't have wisdom, I need to get wisdom. That is so opposite to how we think. Our natural inclination is, I am naturally wise. If everyone thought like me, the world would be better. But the scripture consistently says, you are not naturally wise. You don't have wisdom. The first step of wisdom is to get wisdom. That's what James is saying. You don't have it because you don't ask. You don't ask because you don't think you need it. And so the church, when these trials arose, responded foolishly and sought their security and safety in the things of the world. rather than their only comfort in life and in death. Remember that catechism, what is your only comfort in life and in death? That I with body and soul belong to my faithful Savior. He's the wisdom that we lack, the scripture goes on to say. Proverbs is about Christ. Get wisdom means come to Christ. Wandering from the way of wisdom is so deadly That James encourages the whole church to take their part in leading back the wanderer to the living water. Back to the Lord of hosts. Back to the rock. James echoes so many Old Testament passages here. Turn back, turn back, turn back. In the Hebrew, the word for repent means to turn around and go the other way. You have to turn your back on your own thoughts and you have to face the living God. And when they turn back to the Lord, their sins are covered. So they can stand before a holy God. James is alluding to Proverbs 10 verse 12. That proverb reads, hatred stirreth up strife, but love covereth all sins. In this proverb, Solomon is speaking of our natural pride. We are naturally drawn to slander and gossip and spreading and publishing sins abroad to everyone. We're proud and we think that the condemnation of the law doesn't apply to us, it applies to everyone else. We're so quick to judge the world and so slow to judge ourselves. We're quick to pronounce judgment on others and also quick to justify our own actions. What if you use the same measure that you used on yourself in judging everyone else? Wouldn't you give everyone else a break the same way you give yourself one? It's hatred that stirs up strife. Love covers sin. And God is love. Therefore, there is mercy with Him. This mercy flows from His love. This is the love that covers sin. And of course, every time you talk to a good Jew about covering sin, they thought of the Day of Atonement inside the Holy of Holies. was the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark of the Covenant was a box. Inside the box was the law written on tables of stone. It would crush whoever it fell on. Above the Ark, above this box, were two cherubim with their wings touching, forming a place that symbolized the throne room of God. But there was no image of God there. It symbolized his throne room, God dwelling with his people. But before God could dwell with his people, as we're gonna see as we progress through in our Wednesday night Bible studies in Exodus, before God can dwell with his people, the bullock had to be slain, the blood had to be taken in by the high priest once a year and cover the mercy seat. And that blood would be sprinkled on the top of that box, covering our sins from the sight of God. That was the figure of speech that was played out before Israel year after year after year after year after year. Love covers a multitude of sins. The fact is that if our sins are not covered over from the sight of God, we're all dead men. The problem is a holy God cannot dwell with sinful people because God's perfect law is always before His eyes. He cannot forget His law, it's His nature. How can a God who sees all things naked and open before Him, who knows our hearts, from whose sight nothing is hidden, how can this God be persuaded to close His eyes to our sin? He can't do it. His law must be satisfied. So he sends his only begotten Son in the world. The Son says, Behold, here am I in the volume of the book it is written of me to do thy will, O God. And as that Psalm tells us, a body is prepared for him. He goes to the cross and sheds his blood for my sin. The penalty is paid. That's the blood that covers the multitude of sins. That's the blood that saves a soul from death. It's the only thing that will cover our sin from the sight of God. As our catechism says, if only we accept such benefit with a believing heart. In order to do that, we have to turn our back on all of those self-made things that we think are going to cover our sins from the sight of God. Well, I'm going to be really good today. I'm going to offer a lot of sacrifices today. I'm going to do everything right today. At least I'm not as bad as that guy." And James is saying, turn your back on that. Quit wandering out of the way. The fact is, as trials arise, as the world becomes more and more uncertain, as wars and rumors of wars threaten us, as everything around us becomes unstable, the temptation will always be there to wander out of the way. A temptation is great. A temptation says to us, Jesus isn't enough. You need to do more. The reason that this is so tempting, back to the Heidelberg Catechism, question two, is we don't know how great our sin and misery is. We think that sin is a minor problem. In fact, if we're playing that game where I say something and you give me the first word that pops into your mind, if I said, what's the problem with the world? What's the first word that pops into your mind? Crime, war, politics, others, immigration, education, healthcare? Yeah, those are problems. But those are all so minor compared to the biggest problem of all. The one that we very rarely ever think about. It's the one that I carry in my heart. The fact that I carry in my heart the root of every single heinous sin. If we don't understand that, then we start to think that the problem can be fixed apart from Christ. We think it can be fixed with stronger laws, better policies, better educations, better coalitions. But here's the problem. We think that coming to Christ for cleansing and healing is something we do once and then we move on to something else. But the scripture says moving on to something else is wandering out of the way. Don't wander out of the way. Notice in verse 19 he's talking about those in the church. He says, "...if any of you..." This passage is not talking about evangelizing those outside of the church. He's talking about evangelizing the church. Those who got sidetracked and wandered out of the way that thought that the gospel was something for the beginning of their life, but then they moved on to something else. The fact is there's nothing to add to the perfect work of Christ. Nothing. That's the truth of Christianity. We must be reminded of it over and over and over again. Even the law that's given to us, the third use of the law, the third section of the Catechism, is not given to us to stir up our self-will and pride, but to drive us again to Christ. Every doctrine we learn Every account in Scripture, every psalm, every proverb, all that there is for us to know in Scripture is for the purpose of drawing us to Christ and drawing our back to turn on everything else we rely on, coming to Him alone. Look, for example, at what our confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, does with the Ten Commandments. At the end of the instruction on the Ten Commandments it says, And the answer is first that as long as we live we may learn more and more to know our sinful nature. and so the more earnestly seek forgiveness of sins and righteousness in Christ. Secondly, that without ceasing we diligently ask God for the grace of the Holy Spirit that we be renewed more and more after the image of God until we attain the goal of perfection after this life. The answer is not God strictly enjoins the Ten Commandments on you so you'll work harder, so you'll try more, so you'll do more. No, He says, so that you will come again to Christ because we forget so easily. We'll beg Him for the gift of the Spirit because we forget our weakness and our sin and our misery so easily. And when we forget Christ, we wander out of the way. Christ would never have us forget that without Him, we can do nothing. When we forget Him, we start to turn to other saviors, saviors that we think will solve the other problems of the world. And all those other problems consume our time and consume our emotions and consume our energies, and we forget to rest because we start to think that Jesus isn't enough. He can't save us. We're too sinful. We need horses and armies and riches and might and coalitions and power and money. Because we forget what the real problem is. The real problem is we're alienated from God and our only hope is Jesus Christ crucified. When the perfect innocence and holiness of Christ covers my sin, what do we have to fear? Christ didn't come to draw us to Moses. He came to bring us to God. To cover my sins so that I can stand before God whole and complete. But when difficulties and uncertainty hit us like the waves of the sea, we become like Peter. We start to look at the waves and forget to look at Christ. And that's why we sink. God says, turn back. I will abundantly pardon. He is full of mercy and compassion. He's able to save you completely and you don't need anything else. When our sins are covered and our souls are saved from death, only then We can be at peace. We know that nothing can take us from His hands. From God's perspective, we're secure. But from our perspective, God says, turn back. Like Jacob, take hold of the promise and say, I won't let go. There's a tremendous danger that has plagued the church from the beginning. It is the error of Cain, the error of Esau, It is the greatest error plaguing and threatening Reformed churches today. The error is this. The perfect righteousness, holiness, and satisfaction of Jesus is not enough. It's a good start, but now you need to add obedience. You can call it whatever you want. The error will still kill you. It's like a deadly viper. When the viper bites you, you're dead. And you can call that venom in the viper whatever you want to call it. You can call it flower water, or yummy sweet perfume of life, or sparkly moon juice. It doesn't matter, it's still going to kill you. Because it's venom. And so this doctrine of devils comes by many different names. And you can call it whatever you want to. The idea is this, justification is a good start to your Christian life, but now you need to add to it your works. And you can call those works whatever you want to call them. You can call it love, you can call it covenant faithfulness, you can call it desiring God, you can call it lordship salvation, you can call it any other name. But if it teaches that Christ's righteousness is not enough, and you have to add something to it, It will kill you more certainly and even more deadly than the most venomous viper. And this is what James is calling us to remember. Turn your back on your own thoughts and your own ways. That theology leads to the depths of hell. It destroys our assurance. It blasphemes the name of Christ. It's the doctrine of demons. It is true that it is impossible for those who are truly born again by the Spirit of God to not bring forth fruits of thankfulness. If you have the Spirit within you, it will change your life. But not one of those works will ever add anything to the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ. We are complete in Christ now and forever. Repentance is turning from our dead works to serve the living God. It's turning your back on your own self-will, your own will-worship, your own pride, your own lust for control. It's turning your back on your pretended ability to offer anything to the righteous judgment of God, and standing before Christ without deceit, without guile, naked, with nothing in your hands, and crying out, Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner. And that is not something that you just do once. It's every day of your life. For there will never be a time in your life when you will not need the perfect righteousness and satisfaction of Christ. There is not a moment in your life, not even your holiest and most righteous moments, when you will not need the covering of the blood of the Lamb. This is why the Bible teaches us that Jesus ever lives as our priest to make intercession for us. Because we need Him every moment, every day. Without His blood pleading for us continually, we cannot stand a moment. That is the message of the Church. That's our hope. That's our patience. And from there flow the fruits of the Spirit, love and joy and peace. And all of that must be clear in our witness. When someone is led away from the truth, when they wander from the path, the light must be shined clearly. Salvation is here and nowhere else. And honestly, that message comes at great cost. It's constantly under the attack of the devil. Because if it's true, there's no place for boasting. And you can't ever say, well, at least I'm better than those people. But if it isn't true, we have no hope at all. If the doctrine of Christ falls, the doctrine of justification falls, If we have to offer one scrap of obedience to the perfect work of Christ, we'll be forever under the bondage of sin, at the mercy of the changing laws of men, the never-ending cycle of wondering if our rags are good enough and clean enough. We'll be forever tossed about by every wind of doctrine, and we will still be in our sins. For if Christ is not a complete Savior, He's not a Savior at all. There is no part with God. even in our salvation. The fact is, the devil hates that. And so it's a costly message. Free justification, the doctrine that we are righteous before God because of Christ alone, destroys the bondage of the devil and his children. And so they fight against it constantly with everything they have. And that fight gets discouraging, honestly. That's why James ends with encouragement. Don't lose heart. When you are attacked for seeking to lead people on the right path, remember this, if they've turned, you've saved their soul from death and covered a multitude of sins. Not that salvation is in the hands of men, not at all, but God has chosen to use the ministry of the church, each one of us, to draw men and women to himself. And if God uses our work to save one person from eternal death, then our lives are not lived in vain. So hold fast to the gospel. Hold fast to your only Savior. Don't let the devil sidetrack you. Keep to the path. When the great Presbyterian theologian of the 20th century, Gretchen Machen, died, his last words recorded were, I'm so thankful for the active obedience of Christ. There's no hope without it. After a lifetime of service to the church, he acknowledged, like every true believer does, that if Christ's perfect righteousness was not put on his account, he would suffer eternally in hell. But now there is no more condemnation, for we are complete in Him. So we can live in love, we can guard our tongues, we can rejoice in the diversity of Christ's body, we can put away our trust in the powers of men, we can put away fear, we can look in the mirror, come to Christ again and say, I looked in the mirror, I'm ugly, I'm filthy, I'm twisted, I'm without hope. Wash me again with your precious blood. And He will. And we can boldly preach Christ to the oppressed, to the prisoner, to the adulterer, the adulteress, the wise and the foolish, the rich and the poor, the outcast, the drunkard, the thief. For if they have Christ, there's no need for anything else. He paid it all. His Spirit is living and active and He alone is worthy of all glory and honor and blessing forever and ever. Amen. Let us pray. Our Father in heaven, draw us back to the cross again and again. Never let us forget that Christ alone is our righteousness before you. We stand before you perfect and complete as if we have never had or committed any sin. Cause us, Father, to rejoice in that and put away our fear and distrust and face you, the one who loves us and gave himself for us. Watch over us, we pray, this week. Fill us with Your Spirit and cause us to live in hope and in joy. In Jesus' name, Amen.