James Exhortation

Martydom of James, 18c illustration

Reading 3 - James 5:10

Brothers, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord (James 5:10).

In pursuing our duties in the Truth, we must be actuated by a higher motive than that of present success. Whether men will hear or forbear, through evil report or good report, we must steadily and cheerfully go on. God more frequently than not permits our labors to be fruitless. 'How few receive with cordial faith the tidings which we bring.' We think of the labour and expense in our big and little efforts, and the infinitesimal results.

Our failures, too, are not confined to the alien. How often is the faithful word of warning, of counsel, of reproof, treated with heartless contempt by professors in the household? Yes, there is now but little success; failure is the rule.

"Yet so far as the obedient are concerned, it is not really failure, for by means of it inconceivable good is being evolved. This will be apparent when the day arrives for the manifestation of the sons of God. Even the offense given, the misunderstanding created, the enmity and bitterness evoked, aid in developing the sufferings which teach obedience and bring perfection. Christ's service calls for the exhibition of patience and long-suffering. These virtues can only be cultivated by turning a deaf ear to the likes and dislikes of man and performing our duties as unto Christ, who is at the head of affairs, manipulating them as His wisdom sees fit. In our trials, let us think of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and all the prophets, who through their patient endurance have earned the praise of God (Jam 5:10). Let us pray with Paul that we may be 'strengthened with all might, according to His (God's) glorious power unto all patience and long-suffering and with joyfulness' (Col 1:11)" (AT Jannaway).

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James 5:7-11 THE GRACE OF PATIENCE

Be patient, then, brothers, until the Lord's coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop and how patient he is for the autumn and spring rains. You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord's coming is near. Don't grumble against each other, brothers, or you will be judged. The Judge is standing at the door! Brothers, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. As you know, we consider blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job's perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy.

Already in this chapter James has told us of the situation faced by many of these people in the early ecclesia. They were being cruelly exploited by powerful men who would not stop short even of murder to hang on to their wealth. James condemns such people in the opening verses of this chapter, and now is telling these Christians how they are to react: "Be patient, then, brothers" he says, and he repeats this word 'patience' four times, and in a compound form, making it mean 'perseverance', twice more, so that six times in this text he lays on them the responsibility of being steadfast in obeying God and loving all their neighbours, even in the midst of these pressures.

These followers of Jesus Christ were being taken advantage of and abused. They were being tempted to become bitter, disgruntled, explosive with impatience and rebellious. James doesn't encourage them to be outraged, crying, "To the barricades! To the picket lines! Destroy the system!" Nothing he says will make them give up in despair. He has been telling them how they should live throughout this entire letter, but now he underlines the fact that they should always be patient.

Would the democratic world today give Christ(adelph)ians in China any other counsel? Do we believe that the way for the people of God to act and win China for Christ in this century would be to encourage social unrest and public demonstrations such as those of Tianamin Square? In so many nations of the world our brothers and sisters must act with prayerful discretion if they are to stay alive - "be as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves." There are certain democracies which allow political protest and a free press. They have forms of government by which minorities can gain legal recognition and justice for the oppressed, but in most of the world the great theme for the ecclesia is to live by James' rallying cry to be patient and daily live the teaching of this letter, and preach the gospel to everyone. Nothing will change "until the Lord's coming," says the New Testament. The heart of man will be desperately wicked, and the god of fleshly desire within will blind people's eyes to the truth. There is going to be injustice and abuse, whatever opportunity legal channels provide to obtain civil righteousness may be taken, these will be flawed, if by nothing other than self-serving attitudes. Christian members of the government and lawyers may act and the churches would support them in appropriate ways, but the main directive for us is to be [1] patient, and [2] steadfast, [3] sweet , [4] and unencumbered by any participation in such political matters "until the Lord's coming." Let us look at those first three exhortations and see their practical counsel for us.

1. Be Patient.
"See how the farmer waits" says James. He ploughs his field and plants his seed and then he waits for the rains. He has two grounds for patient hope, the covenant promise of God that spring-times and harvests will not cease, and then, his experience over many years of the truth of that word. So it is not irrational for him to clear his land, dig the furrows and scatter the corn. He has the experience of the Lord's fulfilled promises to sustain him. God has set a timetable, and the farmer has learned patience for its fulfillment.

God has a time for everything he brings into our lives. We are ignorant of his schedule but we are not unaware of his sovereignty, nor of our duty. Resentment gets focused on why God delays or why he permits pain to hit us. He does not make us privy to his reasons for our sufferings, but he gives every one of his people grace to cope with them, and he tells us "be patient." Every day we receive the providence of God. Nothing can rob us of that. Everything comes at the right time.

"Deep in unfathomable mines of never failing skill

He treasures up his bright designs and works his sovereign will.

Blind unbelief is sure to err and scan his work in vain.

God is his own interpreter and he will make it plain."

Early on in Saul's reign when he was fighting against the Philistine army the prophet Samuel told the king to wait for him at a place called Gilgal. But Saul got impatient at the end of seven days and he took it upon himself to offer up a burnt offering to God, and at that very moment Samuel appeared and confronted him with his defiance. If the king of Israel would not obey the God of Israel what hope could there be for that nation? Saul was distrusting the Lord Jehovah at a time a national danger, as though God were not as interested in preserving the people as he. Saul was asserting himself to be the deliverer of Israel as if they could get by without that anointed prophet Samuel. His impatience make him unfit to be king.

James tells the people, "God is going to deal with the wicked wealthy. Be patient in the face of suffering." He is exhorting them not to retaliate against this cruel treatment. You remember the words of the Lord Jesus, "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him taking your tunic" (Luke 6:27-29). The Lord Jesus is not laying down principles that are to be enshrined in government legislation, so that a Caesar were insisting that every woman having her handbag snatched calls back the thief and hands over her rings too. Christ is laying down a great pattern of Christian living, namely, that the believer never personally retaliates under provocation, in fact he would rather suffer in the very opposite way and let more be stolen from him than fail to love one who hates him. That's the purpose of this hyperbole.

The natural thing for these people who were so badly abused by the powerful and the wealthy man would be to burn down his barns by night or ambush him on a walk and hurt him. In other words you avenge yourself. You treat him as badly as he has treated you. Think of how children retaliate and hit back at their siblings. They call names, or pull hair, or strike out at the other. They repay in kind. and sometimes at the express exhortation of their parents: "Stand up for yourself." The whole attitude is drummed into children from the earliest days. But the Bible is teaching patience and non-retaliation. We are not at all to be concerned with defending ourselves. Men may assault us and abuse us. All they are doing and saying is wrong, but how important is it to defend ourselves? The glory of Jesus Christ is not at stake. The good of the congregation of God's people is not being undermined. My neighbour or my family's well-being is not suffering. Only my reputation, sensitivity and thick skin is being hurt. Whey then retaliate? What is the purpose of this concern to defend myself? Be patient.

There are many things that we are called upon to defend, even with our lives. There are great principles like the sacredness of truth and life, the weak within the ecclesia and the honor of the name of the Son of God. A wife is to be a punch-bag for no husband. Let her find a place of refuge before he become guilty of murder. Defending those things is perfectly justifiable, but to defend my own name is something entirely different.

James is telling these brethren ans sisters abused by wealthy men not to be concerned with their rights. They did need food, a wage and a place to lay their head, yet someone was taking those things from them. Then this staggering counsel comes from our Lord Jesus, "Don't insist on your legal rights. If they take your cloak don't stop them taking your tunic." Think of the problems people have with their neighbours, and how they go to court against them, and the lawyers are the only ones who win. Be patient.

Remember the Philippian ecclesia where there were members who felt they were being ignored, and not getting their proper place? They were being slighted and put down. They felt it, and especially their wives or husbands. The apostle Paul confronts them with this absolutely devastating principle, "Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus" (Phils 2:5). When they tried to kill him as a baby he did not pour down fire on Herod's palace. When they despised and rejected him he did not insist on his rights and tell them who he was and from what Kingdom he had come. He did not lay down on the line the magnitude of his own office and the glory of his position and tell them, "I am God's own Son. I have the right not to be taken prisoner, nor to be scourged and humiliated and battered and killed." He said nothing. He patiently committed his life into his Father's hands.

Today liberation theology is belittling the example of patient submission in the Lord Jesus Christ. Some churches are using the image of the revolutionary to represent him. But the Saviour did not insist upon his rights. Human society is being torn apart by men and women who insist upon their rights. Marriages flounder and families break up because of this. Companies go to the wall because both management and workmen insist on their rights. Places like the Balkans, Ireland, Rwanda, nations in west Africa, and Iraq are being torn asunder because government and governed, classes and tribes are all insisting upon their rights. And what is worse, ecclesial fellowships are being broken up because of this impatience.

James is saying that we should not be motivated by personal considerations. It was right for the apostle Paul to appeal to Caesar as a trial case and on behalf of the whole legal status of congregations gathering, worshipping and evangelising in the Roman Empire as a separate religion. It is right for the ecclesia to deal with those who are disrupting the congregation. The police need to be called where, for example, there is child abuse. We take those measures for the protection of the weak, but never for personal consideration, nor because we dislike them, nor because they did us some injury. In those cases we are to be patient and stand firm until the Lord's coming.

We are not to be anxious about this passage and point out what it does not say, and add all sorts of qualifications to point out when we can retaliate. The moment we start putting it like that we have lost our way. Its key word for us is 'patience.' We never act simply because our reserves of patience have run dry. We act because there are other great principles in Scripture that we must also obey. I think we ought to be very suspicious if we hear the word of God and then begin to think, "But when am I exempt from this principle of patient response to trials?" The brother or sister of the Master may never retaliate.

Think of that incident in Peter's life when he struck out with his sword at the soldiers who were in the act of arresting Jesus. Peter wanted to split Malcus's head open. Murder was in his heart. Nothing seemed more natural to him. His impatience with God's commands made him behave like that, and it was an evil action. Don't put Peter in a heroic mold: this was not the valour of one man fighting against great odds but a sinner's frustration with the will of God. Peter had to understand, as James's readers had to, that the Lord Jesus had not come into the world to condemn the world but to save men, and often God's means of saving men puts his people in difficult places. To act rashly, and blurt out angry words, or take up a weapon is to lose all credibility, usefulness and divine blessing.

The first lesson that a young disciple needs to learn is to be patient, and the same lesson is required from the oldest saint, "Be patient, then, brothers, until the Lord's coming."

2. Be Steadfast.

The NIV translates the phrase with the words "stand firm" (v.8). Patience may seem to be a passive grace, but James goes on to speak of endurance and perseverance. The apostle Paul is the great biblical example. His life could never be construed as one of softness or passivity. Or think of David refusing to take Saul's life, with all those provocations and pressures to kill him. David persevered, knowing God's will and steadfastly resisting hurting the king.

James refers to the example of "the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord" (v.10). Their own generation looked at these men and thought they were extremists, fanatics, dangerous visionaries, awkward men, unbalanced by too much religion. Parents held them up before their teenage children when they become interested in following the Lord to warn them what happens if you become obsessed with Jehovah. They were men who were loners, living like John the Baptist in the wilderness, shunned by respectable society. There must have been times of great self doubt when they asked themselves if they could possibly be the only ones right while the whole nation was wrong. Think of Noah and all the scorn and ridicule he put up with, the butt of every drunkard's jokes, year after year, preaching righteousness to the whole world with nobody who would listen. Think of how he kept up the morale of his sons and then of his daughters-in-law, going to the forests cutting down trees, shaping and forming them, working on this great ship decade after decade. What a steadfast man.

Then there were periods when everything went against them. James speaks of Job. He is a righteous man, rising each day, making sacrifice and praying for each of his children should they be failing to pray for themselves. A very prosperous man he is generous to the poor and mindful of his responsibilities as one to whom God has given much. It is very easy to dismiss such a man of wealth trusting God as doing it for some insurance to keep everything sweet. But then the foundations on which he lives are rocked by a series of dreadful events, he loses his entire livestock and his servants, his children are killed in a freak accident, and finally his health gives way. He is covered with sores from his hair to his entire body. His own wife turns against him: "Curse God and die" she hurls in his face. But from his seat on an ash dump he says to her, "You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God and not trouble?" (Job 2:10). That is the voice of the steadfast man. "You have heard of Job's perseverance" (v.11)? And we have again recently been reading of this steadfast saint. So then, "you too be patient and stand firm" (v.8).

3. Be Sweet

I am thinking of this exhortation in verse 9, "Don't grumble against each other, brothers, or you will be judged." He is talking of the sin of murmuring against one another. Of course, none of you does that, do you? It is a dreadful sin. Better to be mute than to murmur. It uncrowns a man and deharmonises a congregation. It is everywhere in the world, complaints about politicians, the royal family, soccer managers and coaches, etc., etc. Not a newspaper does not sneer about the stupidity, awkwardness and ineptitude of well known people.

Grumbling is a possible response to suffering and the difficulties it brings. You are under pressure and you crack. You take it out on someone else. Think of Israel being redeemed from slavery in Egypt and how they grumbled their way across the wilderness and longed for Pharaoh's bondage again and again until those murmurers all died in the wilderness and never reached the promised land. God's people may groan, and then God hears and helps, but they may never grumble. That is a great mark of unbelief.

How impatient some of us are with the weaknesses of others. It is painful to hear grown up believers talking contemptuously about " our young people." We may not require adult conduct from children. We expect the Christian life of a teenager to be a bit of a roller-coaster. That is no excuse for any ignorance or disobedience. But persons who are young in the faith, even if they are old when they come to trust the Lord Jesus, are not going to be fixed in the mores of someone who has actually followed the Lord for 60 years. They are on the early learning curve of faith. We do not require instant adulthood, but we do require those who are mature not to grumble. Those who grumble most are most to be grumbled of.

John Blanchard vividly speaks of resisting grumbling as he recalls a certain experience he had, saying, "I remember the first visit that I made to eastern Europe, traveling by car with two other evangelists. It is not for me to suggest their opinions about their companion on the journey, but they were delightful men I still love dearly in the Lord. We met together one evening in a town in the south-east of England and the next morning drove to Dover to catch the cross-channel ferry. We were in something of a hurry, and were already driving when we started to pray for the whole journey - for our safety, for fruitful contacts, effective ministry and, above all, the glory of God. But before long the "devil" was hard at work, doing his utmost to wreck the fellowship within that car. Great blessings were minimized, little problems were magnified and we found ourselves needing to look to the Lord hour by hour for his protection and for his enabling to overcome the pressures that were being exerted against us. To his great glory the whole of that long, arduous journey was a happy triumph for the love of God 'poured...into our hearts by the Holy Spirit' (Romans 5:5) and, as we have since discovered, the ministry in those days helped significantly in laying the foundation for a great work being carried on in Europe today" (Truth for Life, p.344).

You remember the great exhortation that begins the ethical section of the letter to the Ephesians. All the great doctrines have been set out in their magnificence, and then the response they demand in us, "Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love" (Ephesians 4:2). Think of Job quietly listening to his counselors hour after hour giving him such unhappy advice. James concludes by referring to that and then saying two things:

1. "You have seen what the Lord finally brought about" (v.11). How does the book of Job end? Not where Shakespeare's tragedies end. Not where Lord of the Flies ends. Not where Hardy and Hemingway and Steinbeck end - all in bleak despair. Job's life ends in restoration and divine blessing. That is what the Lord finally brought about. And that is how it will end for the ecclesia, in praise and adoration, in resurrection, vindication and untold joys. The last vote (God's - the only one that counts) is not in yet. The Judge is coming, and he will right all wrongs. Trust what he has said about what he will finally bring about.

2. Lastly James presents us with an image of God: "The Lord is full of compassion and mercy." With all that this chapter insists upon of the righteousness and justice of God here, as this section closes, are the attributes James does not want us to forget. Remember, the Master was the one who, according to the flesh, was his own half brother - boundless in his compassion and his mercy. Ten thousand memories of Jesus' kindness and patience jumped to James's mind. In the midst of trials it is so easy to lose sight of God, and he becomes remote and uncaring.

Remember that the Lord Jesus who let a sinful woman come and kneel at his feet and weep over them it is he who rules the world. He is in charge of your life. He numbers the hairs of your head. "Not a single dart shall hit till the Lord of love sees fit."

Paul was quite alone when he wrote to Timothy and said, "At my first defence no one took my part, but all forsook me ... But the Lord stood by me ... and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion" (2 Tim.4:16). The best of men are sinners. We are not full of compassion and mercy. But the God who controls every part of our lives is, and he stands by our beds of pain. He is with us in our loneliness. Paul says, "The Lord will deliver me from every evil work." He will never leave us. So be patient, and steadfast, and sweet.

As we prepare to partake once more of these precious emblems of our faith, may we recall our Master's example of patience.