February 5, 2017
Evening Service

Warning to the Rich

Jas 5:1 Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.

Jas 5:2 Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.

Jas 5:3 Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.

Trusting in riches will leave you disappointed.

Jas 5:4 Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.

Jas 5:5 Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter.

Jas 5:6 Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you.

Mistreating the laborers of the fields for their own greed.

Now look at the just. They do not resist.

Patience in Suffering

Jas 5:7 Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.

Jas 5:8 Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.

We have seen several examples of this in our fellowship.

Jas 5:9 Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door.

Grudge not, no matter what.

Jas 5:10 Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience.

Jas 5:11 Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.

The Lord has our best interest in mind.

Jas 5:12 But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation.

Swear not because we don't really have the control of what we are swearing by, whatever it may be.

The Prayer of Faith

Jas 5:13 Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms.

Jas 5:14 Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord:

Jas 5:15 And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.

Authority of the Church has power to heal and to forgive if it be God's will.

Jas 5:16 Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

As James stated earlier, we have not because we ask not.

Jas 5:17 Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months.

Jas 5:18 And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.

We all have struggles, but earnestly turn to God and we will have hope.

Jas 5:19 Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him;

Jas 5:20 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.

We point those in error to the Word and let the Lord convert them.

Joh 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.