James 5:1-6 ESV
Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and 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. 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. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you.
Harvesters
“Harvesters” is also a term used to describe those who are
ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, who are preaching (teaching, sharing)
the full gospel of our salvation, i.e. the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:27),
i.e. God’s revealed will and purpose regarding our salvation, in its fullness.
They are laborers in God’s harvest field, steadfast in
prayer and in the study of God’s Word, and in walking in holiness and in close
fellowship with their Lord. And, they are faithful in correctly handling the
Word of Truth, to the best of their understanding, and as led (guided,
directed) by the Holy Spirit of God. And, they do this for the glory of God and
for the salvation and sanctification of their fellow human beings, that they
may know Jesus.
Yet, they are not necessarily Bible college or seminary
graduates or in some official positions of pastor or teacher within a church
organization. Some of them are homemakers, parents of small children, retirees,
workers of manual labor or office jobs, and they are teachers in public schools,
etc.
And, some of them are out in the highways and byways of life
on street corners, in coffee shops, at the local grocery stores, at the malls,
in their neighborhoods, at work, and/or on the internet on blogs, Christian
discussion sites, and on social media where they are sharing their faith in
Jesus Christ and his full gospel message of salvation from sin.
Frauds
But, there are imposters, fakes, and deceivers who are
imitators of God’s harvesters, but whose goal it is to trick, deceive and
manipulate people into believing their lies, disguised as truth. For, what they
are teaching is not the whole counsel of God but a half-truth cheap grace
substitute for the true grace of God and for his true gospel of salvation.
Thus, they are withholding (keeping back) the truth which
can set people free. Thus, their listeners and followers will never be set free
from their bondage to sin, but will go on in their sinful addictions convinced
that they now have the hope of heaven as their eternal destiny, and that
nothing can take that away from them.
For, what they are teaching is that we can “believe” in
Jesus Christ with no submission to him as Lord, with no repentance (turning
away from sin) and with no requirement for walking in obedience to the Lord’s
commands.
Some of them will say this outright, while others will just
leave those things out of the gospel presentation and will leave people with
the notion that coming to faith in Jesus Christ is a one-time event in their
lives which guarantees them heaven as their eternal destiny but that makes no
demands for a changed life or for submission to Christ as Lord.
Murderers
These frauds and their followers and their handlers not only
murder (put to death) the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and the true
nature of Jesus Christ, himself, but they are also murderers of the Lord’s
harvesters, i.e. of his true servants and witnesses.
Some of these frauds and their followers and their superiors
literally are putting to death the Lord’s servants throughout the world in
order to silence them and the message that they are preaching. Others of them
are silencing the Lord’s servants in perhaps more subtle ways. And, one of the
ways in which they are doing this is via deception, and through lies being
spread about the Lord’s servants and about the message they are teaching.
So, they plot many ways to destroy their reputations and to
get other people to not listen to them, but to completely reject them. So, they
will spread rumors and gossip about them, which are slanderous, and with full
premeditated intent to bring them into disrepute, so that all will reject them.
And, there are many different ways in which they are
presently going about this. One of the ways is to try to prove that the true
gospel is “works-based salvation” which is to be rejected, and that the false
gospel is the true gospel of grace which forgives sin and which promises people
heaven.
Or, they are making a case that the true gospel is “hate,
intolerance, and bigoted,” etc., and since God is love, then we all need to
come together as one unified people and destroy all which divides us as the
people of the world. So, right now they are pushing this message very strongly,
and they are making their case to prove that the Lord’s messengers are “religious
extremists” and that we all need to leave religious extremes and find common
ground where we can all meet and agree together.
The Cries
Many of those who are truly following Jesus Christ with
their lives, who are spreading the true message of the gospel of Jesus Christ
with others, so that they can find deliverance from their bondage to sin and
new life in Christ Jesus, are being persecuted for their stand on the truth of
God’s Word, and thus they are crying out to God in their suffering.
And, God is listening to their cries, and he has a day of
judgment in mind for their persecutors in which he will bring down on them much
disaster, which sounds to me much like financial disaster, like a market crash
of some kind. For, the pain and the misery that they have brought upon other
people in the world is going to come back around on them.
And, their riches may or may not be with physical wealth or
with material possessions, though that is clearly what this is saying here. But,
I also see that they could be immaterial treasures, too, such as pride,
self-indulgence, the appetites of the sin nature, lust, greed, bitterness, and jealousy,
etc.
For, it is not material wealth that drives people to reject
Jesus Christ and to persecute his servants, but it is greed, envy, bitterness
and the pride of life and the lust of the flesh which are at enmity with God
and his messengers. And, these all come from the heart of the flesh nature,
which demands its own way, and which rejects any message which tells them that
they must leave their lives of sin behind them to follow Jesus in obedience.
James 5:19-20 ESV
My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.
Yet, blessed are those who are preaching the whole counsel
of God, and who are telling people that Jesus died that we might die to sin and
live to righteousness. For, in their sharing of the gospel, they are bringing some
people back to God from their wandering in their sin, and thus they are saving
their souls from death, for God will forgive their sin, and he will give them
eternal life with him. So, keep on telling people the truth!
Near
the Cross
Hymn
lyrics by Fanny J. Crosby, 1869
Music
by William H. Doane, 1869
Jesus, keep me near the cross;
There a precious fountain,
Free to all, a healing stream,
Flows from Calvary's mountain.
Near the cross, a trembling soul,
Love and mercy found me;
There the bright and morning star
Sheds its beams around me.
Near the cross! O Lamb of God,
Bring its scenes before me;
Help me walk from day to day
With its shadow o'er me.
Near the cross I'll watch and wait,
Hoping, trusting ever,
Till I reach the golden strand
Just beyond the river.
In the cross, in the cross,
Be my glory ever,
Till my raptured soul shall find
Rest beyond the river.
*copyright
status is public domain
Monday, May 6, 2019
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