Exhortation to the rich
5
📚Come now, you rich men 📖, weep and howl because of your miseries that will come on you. 📖 2 📚Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. 3 📚Your gold and silver are corroded 📖, and their corrosion will be a witness against you, and will eat your flesh as if it were fire. You have heaped together wealth 📖 for the last days. 4 📚See, the wages of the labourers 📖 who have harvested your fields, which you have fraudulently kept, cry out, and the cries of those who have done the harvesting have entered into the ears of the Lord of hosts 📖. 5 📚You have lived in pleasure and luxury 📖 on the earth. You have fattened your hearts as in a day of slaughter 📖. 6 📚You have condemned and killed the righteous, when he was not resisting you. 5:6 It is a strange and terrible fact that men, who are here today and gone tomorrow, will kill or trample any law of God under their feet to get money or property. Truly “madness is in their hearts while they live” (Eccl 9:3).⚜
Patience
7 📚Be patient therefore, brethren 📖, until the coming of the Lord 📖. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, waiting patiently for it, until he receives the early and latter rains. 8 📚You also be patient and make your hearts firm 📖, for the coming of the Lord draws near 📖. 9 📚Do not grumble against one another, brethren, lest you be judged 📖. See, the judge 📖 is standing at the door!
5:9 Grumbling about others is the same as judging them, and this is not our business (Jam 4:11-12).⚜
10 📚My brethren, as an example of patient suffering take the prophets 📖 who have spoken in the name of the Lord 📖.
5:10 He has told them to have patience (v 7), now he points them to great examples of patience in the Old Testament. Heb 11:35-39 briefly sets forth some of the things they suffered.⚜
11 📚See that we count them blessed who patiently endure 📖. You have heard of the patient endurance of Job 📖, and have seen the end 📖 the Lord brought about, and that the Lord is very compassionate, and very merciful 📖.
Swearing
12 📚But above all things, my brethren, do not swear, not by heaven, or by the earth, or with any other oath, but let your “yes” be yes and your “no” be no. Otherwise you will fall into judgment.
5:12 Matt 5:33-37. We should speak every word as if God Himself were listening to what we say. And indeed He is. So there should be no attempts to deceive anyone.⚜
What to do in good times and bad
13 📚Is anyone among you in trouble 📖? He should pray 📖. Is any happy 📖? He should sing psalms. 14 📚Is anyone among you sick? He should call for the elders of the church, and they should pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord 📖.
5:13-14 The three situations he mentions covers much of the life of believers.⚜
5:14 Times of sickness are the common lot of mankind, and believers in Christ are not immune from them. James tells us what to do when we are sick. It is one provision God has made for the healing of His people. It is surprising how few believers avail themselves of it. What he states here should be the common practice in all Bible-believing churches.⚜
15 📚And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up; and if he has committed sins 📖, they will be forgiven 📖 him.
5:15 It seems clear that God does not always choose to heal His servants immediately when they fall sick (Phil 2:26-27; 1 Tim 5:23; 2 Tim 4:20). In such a case it will not be possible to pray in faith that they will be healed at once. When anyone has called for the church elders, and God chooses to heal that person, He will give faith to one or more of the elders and then restore the sick person to health.⚜
16 📚Confess 📖 your faults to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. A righteous man’s 📖 prayer at work is very powerful 📖.
Power in prayer
17 📚Elijah was a man with a nature like we have 📖, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. 18 📚And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth its fruit.
5:17-18 Here is an example of the power of prayer. See 1 Kings 17:1; 1 Kings 18:41-46. There are many other Bible examples of prayers power – Gen 20:17; 25:21; Ex 8:30-31; 10:18-19; Num 11:2; Deut 9:20, 25-29; 2 Sam 15:31; 17:14, 23; 2 Kings 4:32-35; Job 42:10; Ps 18:6-24; Dan 9:4, 20-23; Jonah 2:1, 10; Luke 9:29; 22:31-32; John 11:41-44; Acts 4:31; 9:40.⚜
Turning sinners toward God