I would like to ask you a question this morning. What was the greatest, most significant event in world history? I imagine if you were to ask that question of secularists, of historians and scholars, there would be a number of possible answers, ranging from the age of the Renaissance to the Industrial Revolution, or perhaps the Second World War. Younger people might even consider the landing on the moon as the most significant event in world history or I imagine the most popular choice would be the invention of the internet.
However, I would suggest that all the pundits are wrong on all accounts. I would submit that without question, the most important event in the history of the world was the coming of Jesus Christ. Not only was He the most important figure to appear in history, but His coming had the greatest affect on the entire world than any other event in history. God, the Creator, became man and dwelt among us. Now I could try to show how smart I am and list all the ways that is true, but I am not going to try to defend it, other than to say, that His life has affected more lives than any other event in history. And I think that is an undisputed fact.
That brings me to my next question, what is the greatest event that will occur in the future? Will it be world peace, or for man to travel to Mars? I submit that the second coming of Jesus Christ will be the most important event in the future. That second coming will mark the consummation of the age. It will mark the end of the world as we know it. The first time Jesus came to earth, He came to save the world, to bring peace to mankind. Not a peace like the world seeks, but peace between man and God. Reconciliation. Salvation from death which was the condemnation of the entire world.
The second time He comes, He will come in judgment. Jesus spoke often of His second coming, sometimes by the use of parables, as in the parable of the talents, other times openly, clearly, such as to His apostles in the Olivet Discourse, in response to their question “what will be the signs of your coming?” In that day, Jesus will come in judgment, as He said at the end of the Olivet Discourse as recorded in Matt. 25:31-33 "But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left.”
Now it is to that day when Christ will return, that James now turns his attention in this last chapter. He has already referenced it in the previous passage concerning the judgment of the rich, saying, “it is in the last days that you have stored up your treasure!” If you recall from our last study, I said that the rich is another way that James refers to the unsaved, those who store up treasure on earth, who value the world’s system of success.
James is concerned about the fact that the King is returning as Jesus indicated in the parable of the talents, and His servants must give an account for their life. It’s almost ironic that James speaks in the preceding passage of the harvest, which is once again referenced in the verses we are considering today. The harvest is an analogy of the second coming of Jesus Christ.
Jesus used the harvest as an analogy of the second coming in the parable of the wheat and the tares, saying in Matt. 13:30 “Allow both (the wheat and the tares, that is the saved and the unsaved) to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, "First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn."'"
So in the previous passage, James said that at Christ’s second coming, the rich will find that their riches have rotted, they are worthless in the judgment, and instead, they have fattened themselves for the slaughter. Misery is their reward.
But now starting in vs 7, James contrasts those that are saved with the unsaved, and speaks of their need to be patient until the Lord, the Judge of all the earth, returns and gives them their reward, and rights all wrongs.
Let’s look then at vs7, “Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it, until it gets the early and late rains. You too be patient; strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near.”
A lot of commentators treat this section as a new topic, unrelated to what came before it. They see much of the rest of the chapter as a series of unrelated exhortations to various Christian virtues. And so they see patience as a Christian virtue that James is encouraging us to develop in our lives. And so we are told to be patient, to practice patience with others, and generally they underscore the idea that as Christians we are to be this sort of docile, passive, lovey dovey people that wouldn’t say boo to a goose.
Well, I don’t think that is what James is talking about here. I don’t think he’s primarily saying we all need to have this attitude of patience in our dealings with one another. I do think that patience is a virtue and it should be a part of our character. But I think the primary intention of James is to say in effect - “Listen, I know that you Christians are suffering now, I know that you are being mistreated and even persecuted for your faith. I know that you see the rich getting richer while you seem to be getting poorer. You may even be wondering if it’s really worth forsaking everything to follow the Lord. But wait. Be patient. I promise you, the Lord is coming. He is right at the door. Don’t give up, persevere in the midst of your trials. Be patient until the Lord comes back and sets right all the wrongs, and repays all injustices, and makes all things new.”
Notice that James uses an analogy of a farmer as an example of being patient. He is speaking of waiting for the harvest, while working and sowing and planting and picking weeds and all the other things farmer’s do while they are waiting for the crop to come in. Waiting for the autumn and spring rains to have their affect. I’m not sure what the autumn and spring rains are supposed to signify, but we can imagine that they are times of suffering or persecution or hardship that you have to endure in your life. Trials, remember, are not meant to break you, but to strengthen you.
And notice in vs 2 that James says we are to be patient and strengthen our hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near. So being patient is not being passive. To be patient includes working for the night is coming when no man can work. It means persevering in faith. Hoping in trials, looking forward to Christ’s return when He will set things right. It means to have an eternal perspective, and not just a temporal perspective.
I don’t know how much experience you have with growing things. I’m not much of a gardener. But my wife seems to like it. But for me, it’s kind of like the expression, “it’s like watching the grass grow.” I guess that is a similar thought to what it takes to be a farmer. There is a long stretch between the tilling of the ground and the harvest. There may be a long time when it seems like nothing is happening. You wonder if the seed is germinating. You wonder if there is going to ever be any fruit for your labor. And there are certain things that must happen which are out of your control. You can’t control the rain, or lack of rain. You have to trust God for that.
James says we are to be like the farmer who is patiently waiting for the harvest, knowing that the Lord is near. The Lord is coming back soon. There may be a sense in which we think well, James wrote that 2000 years ago, and yet the Lord has not come back yet. Maybe He is not coming. Maybe it doesn’t really matter.
To that sort of doubt, I would say this. Whether the Lord comes back in my lifetime, or I die and go to be with the Lord, either way, the Lord is near. Either way I am going to be face to face with the Lord and I will have to give an account for my life. I should live in expectation of the imminent return of Christ, because I don’t know what my life will be like tomorrow. I don’t know the number of my days. I don’t have any guarantee that I will live this next year out or not. So in any respect, the Lord is near. The Judge is at the door.
Peter said this concerning the imminent return of Christ. 2Peter 3:3-10 “Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with [their] mocking, following after their own lusts, and saying, "Where is the promise of His coming? For [ever] since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation." For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God [the] heavens existed long ago and [the] earth was formed out of water and by water, through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water. But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. But do not let this one [fact] escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up. Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat!”
Be patient, for the coming of the Lord is near. So in light of that, James says don’t complain. Vs 9 “Do not complain, brethren, against one another, so that you yourselves may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing right at the door.” The literal meaning is do not groan amongst one another out of despair. I think the idea is don’t struggle, or wrestle against one another, or strive against one another. The Judge is standing at the door.
I remember my second grade teacher. Her name was Mrs. Abernathy. Second grade must be a terrible grade to have to teach. The timidity of first grade is past, and the kids just go on a tear in second grade. Or at least, I did. I think I was probably the worst in all my class. It didn’t help that Mrs. Abernathy had a bad cigarette habit. Those were the good old days when the teachers had a teacher’s lounge where they could go smoke a cigarette. Mrs Abernathy was always having to go to the teacher’s lounge. And our class was in a trailer which was a bit of a walk from the teacher’s lounge, so when she would go out, we knew we had a long time to act up until she got back. When she left, one kid would watch out the window until she was out of sight, then we would let loose. It would just be bedlam. Complete chaos.
And that’s when all the fights would break out amongst the kids. That kid that had pulled your hair, or tripped you, or threw spit balls at you, that was the time to get even. The teacher wasn’t coming back anytime soon, and so you took that as an opportunity to get even. Maybe that’s the sort of thing that James was referring to. Squabbles and fights break out, arguments start, tempers flare, we take our own revenge because we think that the teacher isn’t there and isn’t coming back anytime soon. We start acting like the devil and we don’t think we’re going to get caught.
In Mrs. Abernathy’s class, there was supposed to be a lookout who would let us know when she was walking back down the sidewalk. And that would give us time to get back in our chairs and act like we were reading our books. But one day, the lookout forgot to keep watch and ended up running around like the rest of us, screaming our heads off for no particular reason. I remember I had my coat pulled up over my head like the headless horseman. I couldn’t see anything. And I was running in circles screaming “My pants are on fire, my pants are on fire!” I don’t know what prompted me to do that. I was seven years old. I think my dad may have preached a message the night before about Samson lighting the tails of the foxes. I don’t know. All I know is suddenly I ran square into Mrs. Abernathy. She grabbed me by the ears and dragged me into the broom closet, her face inches from mine and I remember the smell of cigarettes was overpowering. She said, “If you don’t sit down and shut up, young man, your pants are going to be on fire!” And with that she marched me to my desk. I’ve never forgotten Mrs. Abernathy.
James says, don’t act up thinking that the Lord is away for a long time, and you can act like you want with impunity. No, the Judge is at the door. That means the Lord will judge us by what He finds us doing. Jesus put it in the form of a parable, saying in Matt. 24:44-51 "For this reason you also must be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think [He will.] Who then is the faithful and sensible slave whom his master put in charge of his household to give them their food at the proper time? "Blessed is that slave whom his master finds so doing when he comes. Truly I say to you that he will put him in charge of all his possessions. But if that evil slave says in his heart, 'My master is not coming for a long time,' and begins to beat his fellow slaves and eat and drink with drunkards; the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect [him] and at an hour which he does not know, and will cut him in pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
To that point, then James gives us an example of a man who was flesh and blood, just like us, who suffered tremendously in this life, and yet he endured it and did not lose faith. That man is Job, whom we studied during our Bonfire Bible studies last fall. James says in vs 10 “As an example, brethren, of suffering and patience, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. We count those blessed who endured. You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the Lord's dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and [is] merciful.”
Actually, we should first consider the prophets of old. James said they suffered and were patient. Notice James says that they are to be an “example” to us. The word that he uses there means “a thing to be imitated.” So we are to consider their faith in suffering and their patience as something we should imitate. I encourage you to read Hebrews 11 and the men and women of faith listed there who suffered and patiently waited for the promise to be fulfilled. I encourage you to remember the example of Elijah and the persecution he suffered at the hands of Ahab and Jezebel. And others like Daniel, who was exiled in a foreign land, and lived as a slave, who was cast into the lion’s den. Or Jospeh who was also sold into slavery and then spent 13 years as a prisoner waiting patiently for the Lord to deliver him. Or Jeremiah who was thrown into a well and left for dead. Whom the Lord told to preach, but that no one would listen to him. All those suffered but were patient and trusted in the Lord. Such people, James says, we consider blessed because they endured.
Notice though in that last statement that James equates endurance with patience. Endure is the Greek word hypomeno, which is the root word for endurance which Job uses in the next sentence. Hypomone is translated as endurance. It means to bear up under. We talked about this word back in chapter one vs 2-4 which says, “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have [its] perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”
The idea in that word brings to my mind the picture of Atlas, who is holding the world upon his back. His whole body is straining to carry the weight. Endurance then is not necessarily seeking to get rid of the weight, to be delivered from it, but bearing up under it. Carrying it. Endurance is the strength of heart, the strength of faith that perseveres in trials, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith. Sometimes, that means being faithful unto death. Not accepting release, but enduring to the end.
Well, Job was such a man, a man of endurance. Notice what James says, “You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the Lord’s dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and is merciful.” We have probably all heard the adage, “the patience of Job.” It’s probably not as popular a saying as it used to be, and I suppose that’s because of the increasing secularism of the world for one, but also the new versions of the Bible do not follow the KJV in translating that verse. The KJV says, “Ye have heard of the patience of Job.” The better translation is not patience, but endurance. So the fact that the KJV has fallen out of favor somewhat may have made the adage “the patience of Job” become less popular.
But the fact is, when I think of Job, I don’t think too much about his patience. I’m not sure that patient is an apt description. But I think about his suffering. And James says that you have heard of the endurance of Job. He bore up under his suffering. He cried out to the Lord, he even complained to the Lord about his situation, he argued with his friends over his situation. But overall, he endured his trials without losing his faith. His most famous statement was, “though He slay me, yet will I hope in Him.” And God eventually blessed Job because of his enduring faith. Even though God allowed Satan to take almost everything from Job, yet in the end God showed compassion and mercy upon him and restored everything that he had lost.
And though we suffer, even if it means we die in faith, yet we will find that the Lord is compassionate and merciful to those who endure in their faith. Who do not renounce the Lord when He does not operate like you think He should, or in the time frame that we think He should. We don’t take our own revenge, we don’t take matters into our own hands, but we trust in the Lord.
And I think that indicates the proper interpretation of verse 12. I don’t think that as a lot of commentators believe, James is just stringing together a series of unrelated exhortations. But I think vs 12 is connected to vs 11. And I would suggest that it is related to Job. Let’s look at what he says. “But above all, my brethren, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath; but your yes is to be yes, and your no, no, so that you may not fall under judgment.”
Now that should remind us of a teaching of Christ. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, "Again, you have heard that the ancients were told, 'YOU SHALL NOT MAKE FALSE VOWS, BUT SHALL FULFILL YOUR VOWS TO THE LORD.' "But I say to you, make no oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is the footstool of His feet, or by Jerusalem, for it is THE CITY OF THE GREAT KING. Nor shall you make an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. But let your statement be, 'Yes, yes' [or] 'No, no'; anything beyond these is of evil.”
So the similarity of James statement to Jesus is obvious. But I think in context James is saying it in reference to Job. And I would suggest that could be found in the statement by Job’s wife at the crux of his crisis. When everything of value in Job’s life was lost, his children had died, his skin was bursting in boils so that he sat in an ash heap and scraped himself with a potsherd. When he was at his lowest point, his wife said to him, "Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die!" Basically, she said, “you’re no more use to me, you should just die.” She also was saying, “God doesn’t care about you, so why don’t you renounce your faith in Him and die.”
But Job said to her, "You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?" In all this Job did not sin with his lips.” I think that’s what James is getting at. Don’t sin with your lips. Don’t lie to escape adversity. Don’t denounce God to escape persecution. Don’t blame others and argue with them to try to escape suffering. Don’t sin with your mouth that you don’t fall under judgment.
When God finally speaks to Job, he is so overwhelmed at the majesty of God, that he says,"Behold, I am insignificant; what can I reply to You? I lay my hand on my mouth.” That willingness to suffer silently without reproaching God, without reproaching our fellow man, without renouncing our faith in the Lord, is the description of enduring with patience. James says, we count those blessed who endured. Jesus said, in "Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when [people] insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
There will be a reward for the faithful who endure to the end, when Jesus comes back. James tells us that the Judge is at the door. The coming of the Lord is near. Hold on to your integrity. Persevere in your faith to the end. The Judge is at the door. That is James message to Christians who live and suffer in the world, wondering where Jesus is, when will He return, why does He tarry? James assures us, Jesus is coming soon. The question is, are you ready to meet the Lord, and will you be received as His sheep, or cast away as the goats. He is coming to judge the world, I hope you will be found faithful when He comes.
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