Thank You Nate and to the musicians this morning if you would in addition to having your Bible open to James chapter 5 if you would put a marker in at Luke chapter 16 and That would be helpful. We're going to get to that in just a little bit. Today, we have a very ugly picture of the love of money. James had some extremely vehement words about the abuses of certain wealthy people that he had observed. The Bible is clear that being wealthy is not wrong. In fact, some people in the Bible were blessed with riches. By God, three examples were Abraham, Solomon, and Job. It's important at the outset to understand James is not condemning the rich because they're rich. But having the wealth does lead to some temptations, and we're going to see four sins laid out in this passage. Jesus said in Mark 10.25, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. One of the dangers of riches, it's easy to trust in them rather than trusting in Jesus Christ. However, there are also temptations that are felt more strongly by poor people. Consider this passage from Proverbs 30, seven through nine. Two things I ask of you, deny them not to me before I die. Remove far from me falsehood and lying. and give me neither poverty nor riches. Feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you and say, who is the Lord? Or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God. From that passage, we might believe that the ideal place to be is in the middle class. But many of us are middle class and we know that we have plenty of temptations in the area of finances too. Though James, in this passage, he's not castigating rich people on the whole, but he does castigate the rich people who are guilty of the sins that he's about to lay out. Now there's been a good bit of debate about the identity. Who were these rich people that James was targeting in this indictment? Of key importance is the question, is he talking to believers or is he talking to unbelievers? It really doesn't sound like he's talking to believers. For example, in verse 1, come now you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. The miseries, that sounds like eternal judgment. Now, James could have implied that some Catastrophe was about to fall rich people while still in this life, but that doesn't seem likely. Also lending to the possibility that James is addressing unbelievers is the severity of the charges. For example, in charge of murder in verse six, you've condemned and murdered the righteous person. And then a further note of interest is that James does not preface this section with the Very familial and friendly, my brothers, which he did in many other places in the epistle. In fact, I think in every other chapter, he uses the words my brothers. But here he does not use the words my brothers. Put together, it sounds quite possible, maybe likely, that the wealthy people here addressed were not saved. However, James does speak this indictment directly to the rich people. He's not talking to the people in the church about the rich people. He says, come now you rich. He expected these words would reach the ears of wealthy people guilty of the named sins. So we could make three suggestions about the intent of James. in verses one through six. One, we could say he expected his words would reach the unsaved outside of the church. And in fact, the words of scripture often do reach the unsaved and the unchurched. For example, most people, most, in our society would recognize that the command thou shalt not commit adultery does come from scripture, even if they've never attended church. Second possibility, he knew that within the church there are unsaved people. The Bible warns in many places that not everyone who is part of the visible church is saved. Not everyone who's a church member is saved. In fact, it's reasonable to minister with the assumption that some people are likely unsaved. So James could have been trying to reach the unsaved people that were in the church and would hear his letter read. Third possibility is he addressed the unsaved, but his cautions needed to be heard by saved people as well. We'll proceed this morning with that assumption, which I believe is fair in light of the fact that Jesus often addressed his own disciples about the deceitfulness of riches. It's not just the unsaved that sin because of the love of money. We all need to be aware of the temptation of riches. The deceitfulness of riches cause us as believers to become unfruitful in the kingdom of God, for example, see Mark 4.19. Well, we probably have no one here today who is guilty of the extremity of sins that James observed and commented on here. Our culture as a whole is easily as debased as the culture James grew up in. All the extremes noted by James are present in America, but probably not too many in this church to the extreme abuses talked about by James. But for these extreme abuses, there are incipient forms of abuse. These sins, they show up in embryonic forms. They show up as baby sins waiting to grow up and become habitual and lead to the extreme sins in these verses. That was exactly the point of Jesus in the passages that start with, you have heard that it was said. They come from Matthew 5 verses 27 and 28. You have heard that it was said you shall not commit adultery. Jesus explained that doesn't mean that everything up to the point of adultery is okay, not at all. Jesus made it clear that everything in this category of behavior which belongs to adultery is sin. Think of it as though the Old Testament labeled this whole spectrum sins, it labeled it adultery up here at the top and underneath it were a long list of sins that belong to this category, with adultery being the kind of culminating sin in that particular spectrum. But underneath the label adultery were all kinds of other sins, sexual sins, including lust, because Jesus said, I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. We have to take this approach in James 5, one to six. It's no good for us to say, well, I haven't committed fraud or murder when we're guilty of the sins that belong in the same spectrum of sins for which these wealthy people were accused. Let's look at the passage beginning with verse 1 as an introduction. Come now you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. The rich people were oblivious, it seems, to their condition. The writer had to tell them to weep and howl. Apparently they believed everything was fine, or at least they believed that they were destined to get away with their behavior. When we consider the next five verses, it seems obvious that not everything was fine, not with people being condemned and murdered and all. I think the murder referred to here, it's not cold-blooded, premeditated murder. The word condemned indicates there was a legal process that occurred. The rich people were able to purchase the favor perhaps of attorneys and judges and the rulings then favored the rich. The poor became poorer and poorer until they had no money for medical treatment, adequate living conditions, adequate nutrition, life expectancy plummeted. This was probably the type of murder that James addressed here. Deprivation of life, though, even through legal means. Legal means, according to the government, is still murder in God's eyes. Think abortion. It's legal in the government's eyes. But the curiosity here is Why wasn't it self-evident to these people that their behavior was just way out of line? They defrauded common laborers. They took poor people to court and victimized them to the point that their lives were lost. How could anybody think that was okay? There's a very interesting comment at the end of verse 6. You have condemned and murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you. Maybe that's partly why these people never stopped to consider how terrible their behavior was. The victims didn't resist. They didn't fight back. Just like Jesus didn't resist and fight back during his trial, during his crucifixion. Furthermore, Jesus commanded us. I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil, but if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him, the other also, Matthew 5.39. It's interesting to consider why the people didn't resist the aggression of the rich here. in the early church. Either they were unable to resist or they chose not to. It could be they were unable, perhaps the courts were so rigged toward the influences of the money that the poor had no recourse. But that's not what the text seems to hint at. You have condemned and murdered the Righteous person, he does not resist you. The righteous person was obeying the commands of Jesus. Do not resist the one who is evil, but if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. It was a choice. Is it possible? that we persist in sin because no one resists us? Is it possible that you could sin against your spouse by small dishonesties or sharp words or silent treatment or by insisting on having control in the marriage? And it doesn't fully come to your attention because your spouse doesn't challenge you about it? Just because people are not fighting back against your sins doesn't mean everything's okay. It's a frightening thought as a pastor to think that I could be sinning against the congregation by poor leadership or unkindness or maybe a problematic attitude and the people are just too nice to tell me about it. I remember as a youth, I felt I was pretty smart because I could pull the wool over my parents' eyes in regard to certain things, you know, what time I came home and, you know, so forth. Only to later find out that I was never fooling them at all. They just didn't confront me about the dishonesty. Just because no one confronts you doesn't mean that you're not sinning. Now we'll move on to verses two through six, which explain in some detail the horrors that the author observed at the hands of these wealthy people. There are four sins condemned in the passage. First one is covetousness and hoarding. Verses two and three, your riches have rotted, your garments are moth-eaten, your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. you have laid up treasure in the last days. Now, wealth in Bible times was held in commodities. They didn't have stocks to invest in and electronic means to amass assets. He lists four commodities here, a little bit of a generic term, riches. Garments gold and silver our riches. It's not further explained what they are, but I think it's a pretty good bet that they involved the granaries Remember the rich fool on Luke 12 he had an extraordinary harvest and he had to decide what to do with the Large amount of grain that he had and we read Luke 12 18. He said to himself. I'll do this I'll tear down my barns and build larger ones and there I will store all my grain and my goods and People today don't generally hoard wealth with grain and food products, but where you had a lot of people who were poor and at the point of starvation, if you had barns full of grain, you had all kinds of power. The other non-durable item of wealth was garments. They were handmade or hand loomed. Very expensive, people usually had a very limited wardrobe, and wealthy people accumulated wealth by having expensive garments or fabric. And James said, these are rotting away, your riches have rotted, your garments are moth-eaten. Their covetousness kept them from sharing with needy persons. Even when the grain was rotting away and the moths were eating the garments, they still wouldn't help the poor. Generally, moths will not damage garments that are being worn. It's when you put them into storage, that's when the moths will start to eat holes in the garments. Something similar is said about the gold and silver. your gold and silver have corroded. Actually, pure gold and pure silver don't corrode, but I understand that they can tarnish, especially if they're not in completely pure form. Or the corrosion here could have been symbolic, meaning just money wasting away in a shed, no good to anybody. Now look at the warning in verse three. Their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. There's a judgment day coming. Everyone's deeds will be judged when they stand before God in detail. So God, as it were, would open the door to this wealthy man's granary and what he would see is large heaps of grain rotting away. even though down the street there were people starving. And when he opened the rich man's closet on the judgment day, he would find moth-eaten garments when his neighbors were partially naked and exposed to the cold. And the door to the safe will be opened to find tarnishing gold and silver never used and never needed by the rich man. while neighbors and employees languished away because they couldn't pay for medical help or afford to build a safe or adequate home. The judgment against this rich man is then described as flesh being eaten by fire. It's maybe a reference to hell, very possibly, which is generally spoken of in terms of fire. The question falls to us on Judgment Day. Will we be innocent of the accusation that we wasted our wealth? If I die today and stand before Jesus, will I be anxious and excited to give an account of what I did with my assets? that he allowed me to be steward over. Will you? Will you be excited to tell God how you used your assets to care for the needy and to underwrite the gospel? Now here, you have to decide what is reasonable investments and reasonable savings versus hoarding. It's a matter of prayer and it's a matter of discernment. It's not that extra money has to be given away. The Bible says a good man will pass on an inheritance to the third generation, Proverbs 13, 22. A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children. Also, there were wealthy men in the Bible whose wealth was noted as a blessing from God. Job 42.12, the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning, and he had 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen, and 1,000 female donkeys. Just the value of the camels alone would be about six million American dollars today. But Job had a habit of using his wealth to help the needy. He said so. In Job 29, starting at verse 11, he said, When the ear heard, it called me blessed, and where the eye saw, it approved, because I delivered the poor who cried for help, and the fatherless who had none to help them. The blessing of him who was about to perish came upon me and I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy. The poor, the fatherless, the needy, the widow. Assisting the poor today is different than in Bible times. partly because government aid in the form of social security and food stamps and homeless shelters takes care of a lot of the basic needs. But the Bible still calls us to use our wealth to bless people. Now the wicked men and possibly women in James 5, they would rather let their wealth rot than help the unfortunates around them. All right, number two, fraud, verse four. Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you have kept back by fraud are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. And this was fraud on the part of employers. The wealthy usually had servants working under them. Their wages paid were relatively low, but additionally, there was fraudulent means of withholding wages. Well, James didn't find it necessary to explain how that fraud happened, but maybe the hours weren't correctly counted, or perhaps wages were held back for losses that weren't the worker's fault. You know, a cow died, and the employer took the money of the value of the cow out of the paycheck, even if it wasn't entirely the worker's fault. I don't know. but it was fraud. The picture he painted was clear. The wealthy man, he had more than enough money to pay fair wages, but he chose not to. This was a case of just outright greed and tight-fistedness, and it was done in a very unethical manner. Now, as a literary piece, the Bible is very, it's outstanding literature. as we would expect from a book inspired by God, but in the Bible we see the use of figures of speech, one of which is personification. Personification is a type of figurative language in which non-human things are given human qualities. An example of personification is found in Genesis 4 when God confronted Cain about the murder of Abel. And the Lord said, what have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground, Genesis 4.10. In that case, blood had a voice. In James 5.3, the unpaid wages had a voice. Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. So God hears testimony from all his creation. From his all-seeing vantage point, the fraudulent, unpaid wages were like a flashing, warning light, screaming for justice. And this was true no matter how slick the wealthy men hid the fraud. Sins that are hidden to men's eyes are seen clearly by God. That's so easy for us to forget. It's so easy even for believers to think, I think I got away with that. But our behavior is always seen clearly by the one that matters most, God himself. This sometimes happens in financial matters. It happens in theft. It happens in falsifying books. It happens in falsifying taxes. It happens in embezzlement. It happens in theft of services. You know what theft of services is? A number of years ago, I put personal trash in the dumpster at my agency, but I knew that wasn't quite right. So I went to talk to the chief operating officer. I asked him, is it okay if I throw a few bags of trash in the dumpster? He looked a little surprised at the request. I said, well, just make sure there's room in the dumpster. Do it when not a whole lot of people are watching. I don't want all kinds of people asking me to throw their personal trash in the dumpster. I said, okay. And then he said, you know what it's called when people use a dumpster that's not theirs? I didn't. He told me it was called theft of services. Wouldn't that have been a stain on the name of Jesus if I had been charged with Theft of services. Well, the fraud in verse three, it was carried out by wealthy people with no motive other than greed and complete ruthlessness. It was carried out against poor people who suffered greatly because of the fraud. This is not a case of Robin Hood robbing the rich to benefit the poor. That's wrong too. But we have more sympathy for it. Here the unpaid wages of the suffering workers reached God's ears. He's referred to as the Lord of hosts. He's the Lord of armies. At God's disposal are legions of angels and even devils, as well as all the forces of nature, wind and storm and pestilence and epidemics. And the picture is that God is there with twitching fingers over any number of triggers or levers, any of which would unleash an army against the injustices of the wealthy men. Our question for application is, where have you been deceitful or unfair in your financial dealings, especially when dealing with the underprivileged? Do you misinterpret the condition of a vehicle to sell it? Have you failed to pay for a bill in full? Or been overly hard in your negotiations? The Lord of hosts sees it. All right, number three, overindulgence. Verse five, you've lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. At this point, we need to say God is not against pleasure. So one lie of the devil is that God is a God of all seriousness and all rules. He's opposed to all fun and pleasure. The prodigal son bought into this lie. If I'm gonna have any pleasure, I'm gonna have to blow out of this house Nobody around here knows how to have fun. If I'm going to experience pleasure, I need to get out of here. Actually, the things prohibited in the Bible are those things which ultimately cause pain to us and pain to those around us. God's rules are for our protection. God's not opposed to pleasure. Our bodies were made to experience pleasure. He created them that way. We were created to enjoy good food and certain sights and to enjoy music, to enjoy touch and sexual experience. Scripture makes it clear that God is not opposed to pleasure. Psalm 1611, you make known to me the path of life and your presence there is fullness of joy at your right hand are pleasures evermore. As a young boy, every once in a while I'd get roped into playing a game of Quaker Sunday. You can probably guess about what that is, but the game Quaker Sunday was played by sitting in a chair, no talking, no moving, no smiling, just sitting there somber and austere for longer than the other kids. Yeah, whoever held out the longest was, you know, was the winner. This we supposed was spiritual, at least in the eyes of the Quakers. And I remember this influence in the church I grew up in. Men who walked around with long faces, very somber, you know, we assumed that they were the spiritual ones. At least that's how I and my peers understood it. I guess there was not much teaching on the fruit of the spirit being joy. I don't remember. But don't ever buy into the fallacy that God is against pleasure. James is not reprimanding people for having the simple pleasures of life. He's addressing overindulgence. Those pleasures in the flesh soon become lust of the flesh. Lust of the flesh is one of three deadly temptations, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life. Pleasures of food quickly become food addiction. Enjoyment of the beauty of the body easily becomes pornography. And very quickly, the creator God is replaced by something he created. Forbidden in the Ten Commandments, this is Exodus 20, starting at verse three. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness. of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water underneath the earth, you shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God. We are created to be worshipers, but very quickly we become worshipers of the wrong things. The rich persons here lived in opulence. And there was no restraint on their lusts, their bellies had become their God. They indulged in what felt good, their time, their energy, their attention, their resources were spent on the luxuries they preferred. And whatever gets your time, your energy, your attention, and your resources is your God. There's no sense in pretending that you serve the Lord of Heaven if your time and your energy and your attention and your resources are spent in another direction. And there are so many other gods out there. Alcohol or other addictive substances, food, sports, video games, politics, money, possessions, hobbies, social media. The list goes on and it goes on. We need to prayerfully consider, are our recreations and our pursuits, are they healthy pleasures? Or are they pushing God to the extremities in our life? God has given us all things to enjoy. None of those things is to replace him. These people had fattened their hearts in a day of slaughter. Now that doesn't sound good. That doesn't sound good at all. It's a little unclear exactly what the day of slaughter was, but it appears to compare these indulgent people to cattle that were being fed grain luxuriously, not knowing the day of slaughter was at the other end of their feasting. Oh, that's overindulgence. Number four, murder by contempt. You have condemned and murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you. Again, I don't think James was saying these people were guilty of capital murder. They were guilty of having so much arrogance and contempt and hardness of heart that their predatory treatment of others resulted in premature deaths. That amounts to murder in God's eyes, even if the court doesn't see it that way. We talked a little bit before about how this crime might unfold, so we won't address it any further. The depravity in verse six that led to the charge of murder was the utter hard-heartedness, contempt for people. And how did they choose the targets of their abuse? The victims were chosen because they were either unable or unwilling to resist. I hope that there's no one among us so callous as to be guilty of the behaviors that would cause physical death to people around us. Sometimes accidents happen. that caused deaths, this is not accidental behavior, this is calculated brazen exploitation and the predators didn't care a bit about the victims, probably they gloated over the fate of their victims. But for our purposes to apply this, let's not address misconduct that leads to physical death, let's apply it by asking about negligence that leaves spiritually needy people at the door of eternal damnation. spiritual death. We could apply this to our weakness and witnessing. Most of us, maybe all of us, have had opportunities to witness to people and we've been fearful or we didn't want to take the time to deal with that person and and we failed to tell them about Jesus, and our conscience bothered us, and we asked forgiveness. We could talk more about that. But remember, this teaching in James 5 is about the misuse of wealth. A question for American Christians brought up in James 5, one through six, are we allocating our resources for the gospel, or are we misallocating our resources? Am I misallocating my God-given resources? Are you misallocating your God-given resources? Now, it would be nice, it would be nice if I could give you some kind of formula and you could run the data through the formula and it would, you know, it would tell you whether you're responsible or irresponsible. Some Christians suggest there is a formula like that. They suggest that it's the tithe, you know, 10%. That's a way to make sure you're allocating your resources responsibly. But the New Testament principle is not so much tithe as it is a response to how God has prospered a person. 1 Corinthians 16, one and two. Now concerning the collection for the saints, As I directed the church of Galatia, so you also are to do on the first day of every week, each of you is to put aside and store it up, put something aside and store it up as he may prosper. So the giving was in proportion to the prosperity. so that there will be no collecting when I come, said Paul. So a tithe is a useful guide, but some people may not be able to tithe. Some people should give more than a tithe, depending on how God has prospered them financially. So I can't offer you any formula. Rather, you should pray and give generously, ensure that your life is free of the greed depicted here in verses one through six. But fortunately, Jesus left us with a parable on this very subject. In Luke 16, you can open your Bible there. Jesus left us a parable on this very subject, how we're to use our wealth in this world, given our responsibility to the gospel. All right, let's read this. It's verses 1 through 13. He also said to the disciples, there was a rich man who had a manager and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his possessions. He called him, he called the manager and said to him, what is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your management for you can no longer be manager. And the manager said to himself, oh, what shall I do since my master is taking the management away from me? I'm not strong enough to dig. I'm ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that when I am removed from management, people may receive me into their houses. So summoning his master's debtors, one by one, he said to the first, how much do you owe my master? He said 100 measures of oil. He said to him, take your bill, sit down quickly, and write 50. Then he said to another, how much do you owe? He said 100 measures of wheat. He said to him, take your bill and rate 80. The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. for the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by the means of unrighteous wealth so that when it fails, they may receive you into eternal dwellings. One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much. If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in that which is another's, who will give you that which is your own? In summary, What did Jesus mean by this passage? No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. How many people find this parable difficult to understand? Much of the problem understanding this parable is in verse eight. The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. Wow, that seems a little strange. He was commended for his shrewdness, not for his unethical behavior, for his shrewdness. And then the last half of verse eight, for the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. Some people have taken this as a sort of insult to the abilities of Christian businessmen. You mean the unsaved are always better businessmen and businesswomen than we are? No. We fail to understand an assumed phrase at the end of this verse. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light are in dealing with their generation. In other words, the people of this world are better at building earthly wealth than Christians are at building heavenly wealth. Maybe we're pretty poor at building heavenly wealth. Now the command to his disciples is found in the next verse, verse nine. I tell you, go out and make friends for yourself by the means of unrighteous wealth, your money. so that when it fails, they may receive you into eternal dwellings. Use your earthly wealth, disciples, here and now, so that when it fails, when you can't take it with you to the grave, then you will be welcome in heaven. having been a faithful steward of your earthly money, using it to point people to Jesus, and maybe there'll be people there in heaven because of the way you rightly used your earthly assets. Again, the meaning of this parable, it's summarized in verse 13, the final statement, you cannot serve God and money simultaneously. If you love God more than money, you'll use your money to promote God's kingdom here on earth. Either you love your money and you're using it to serve yourself, or you love God and you're using your money to serve his kingdom in the gospel. So I ask the question again. Are you anxiously awaiting the opportunity to give God a count of the way you handled your money should you die today? Or would you hesitate or maybe even blush a little? Now let's suppose, let's suppose that there are some people present here today who would say, well, actually I'm not ready at all to give a count. you know, my finances, and frankly, I'd be quite embarrassed and quite ashamed of what I would have to report. Well, what then do these people need to do? And the answer is found back in verse one. Come now, you rich, weep and howl. You have the opportunity today to change the trajectory of tomorrow. You can repent today. Change your ways, you'll be more ready to meet him tomorrow. As weeping and howling, that's the sounds of sorrow over sin. Maybe not literal weeping and howling here, that would be distracting, but you can go to God privately, asking for his forgiveness. You can do it in the next five seconds. Asking his forgiveness. He always grants Willingly the request of people to be forgiven We're given the opportunity to repent today of our selfishness and finances so that we can be ready or at least more ready for eternity Let's pray Heavenly Father you have blessed us so much financially and even Even those of us in the middle class or lower middle class here today, Father, have so much more than most people in the world. And we will, Father, one day have an appointment to give account of ourselves, including of how we You used our money. Help us not to be cruel with our money like these people were, neglectful, negligent. Help us instead, Father, to use everything that we've been given, Father, to promote the gospel and to point people to Jesus Christ. We ask you to be with us as we continue to worship this morning. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.