Wealth and Divine Justice

Alright, well, good morning. Good morning. Welcome to coffee and devotions this morning. We're gonna be talking about rich people Yeah, and maybe it's not so good Let's have some coffee. We'll pray. I'll get into God's Word James chapter 5 verses 1 through 6 It's a little warm you want to try some No, you don't want any? Okay. Maybe after. Okay. You ready to pray?
God, thank you so much for this day. Thank you for the blessing it is to get to read your word. Thank you for giving us your word. It's a gift from you, from your Holy Spirit. God, we pray that you would please help us to read it by faith and that we would both receive it by faith, lay it upon our hearts and practice it in our lives. In Jesus's name we pray. Amen. Here we go, James chapter 5 verses 1 through 6. You want to read a little bit, Dan, or do you want me to read it? Okay.
Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be a witness against you, and will eat your flesh like fire. You have heaped up treasure in the last days. Indeed, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out. And the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabbath. You have lived on the earth in pleasure and luxury. You have fattened your hearts as in a day of slaughter. You have condemned. You have murdered the just. He does not resist you.
Wow, lots of good things to say about them, huh? So we need to ask ourselves, A, what is this? About. About. B, what's the? Best verse to summarize. Best verse to summarize. And C, what are we? Called to do. Called to do. I'm going to move this a little bit closer to you because you moved back. OK, so what is this about? Well, who is James, the brother Jesus, talking to here? He's not talking to Peter. Notice what the first four verses. Come now you. Come now you.
Rich. Rich. Well, what does he say about the rich people? That gold is corroded. That gold will eat the flesh. Yeah, right. So they've lived high on the hog. They've lived in luxury. And they did. Did they do this by just gains? I don't think James here is saying that the money itself is evil, although he does say that the love of money is the root of all sorts of evil. But what is shown here? They have not loved people. Instead, did you notice what it said?
You have heaped up treasure in the last days. Indeed, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out. So imagine if we hired somebody to take care of our yard out here. And then instead of paying them, we went, forget you. I'm not going to pay you. Hey, I would do your yard. I know you would do it.
But imagine you got that job. You've done that before where somebody's hired you to mow their lawn. Well, how would you feel if you spent all the time to go there, you maintained the lawnmower, you filled up the gas can, you did all the work, you sweat like crazy.
And then they said, you know what? I decided I'm not going to pay you. Then I would say, well, what do you mean you won't pay me? And what if they said, I just don't want to pay you? Well, you gave me a deal that you would pay me. Yeah. But you're poor. Go try to argue with the judge. Who are they going to believe? They're not gonna believe you you're poor what if I wasn't but you are Yeah, does that sound good oh No, no, right God. That's that's the type of partiality the James is saying don't be like that Did you know there are people like that in this world?
Yeah, so where Daddy grew up, I grew up in California. Do you know what's really close to where I grew up? The Mexican border. And so people would come over and they would be illegal, right? They didn't have any documentation and so they couldn't legally work in America. However, they had jobs, right? People would go and they would find them at like Home Depot and places like that would go hire them for the day to do work. But then do you know what they would do after they had made them work for them all day? They'd say, I'm not paying you. Could they go to the judge?
Nope. Could they go to the police officer? Nope. Nope. I think James is talking to a very similar thing. This is a Roman world. Most of the people aren't citizens. Very few people in the Roman world had citizenship. And so you don't have a right to the courts and the courts don't care. Who are they going to believe?
The rich guy who owns land and is a citizen or the poor guy who says, cheat me on my wages? Probably the HMU. Yeah, and James is saying, whoa, you rich. Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you, right? God's going to judge that. But what if you pretended you're poor and you were a police officer and they said that? Oh, that'd be a very different story. But James's point here isn't your made-up scenario. James's point here is that that type of faith is going to die.
If you're the type of person that you say, oh, I'm a Christian, I'm a Christian, and then you write bad checks, you break your contracts, you don't pay the people, and you've made your wealth by oppressing others, Does that sound like what Jesus is calling us to do and be? But there is some rich people that are good. Well, yeah, right. And again, that's I don't think that this is calling out all rich people as inherently evil, but specifically here, which you kept back by fraud.
Right? The cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Shavuot. Now that specifically, Shavuot, so in Hebrew this would be Adonai Savaot, which would be the God of the armies. The Lord of the armies, when he comes and he judges, is he going to show partiality to the rich?
No. No, he's not going to be partial. He's not going to favor them. He's not going to be buddy-buddy with the rich people. I thought you meant the poor people. No, he's not going to be partial with the poor people either. He's not Christians. Oh no, he doesn't show partiality is the point. God doesn't care whether you're rich and strong or poor and weak.
Justice is justice and he shows justice. And he says, you've lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure. He fattened your heart, says in the day of slaughter. You have condemned. You have murdered the just. Oh, I think James here might be specifically speaking about those Jewish people. Who is the just one?
Specifically Jesus right you have murdered the just he does not resist you Just wait the time of judgment is coming you need to be ready Yeah, that's what he's telling them, right? He's telling them to be ready for the judgment because oppression will be judged. Stealing and fraud will be judged. Taking advantage of the poor will be judged.
And so that's what the Lord is getting at here. So, what do you think is the best verse to summarize this? What part of that do you think was most helpful to you? Probably... Well, you always do all of them. I have verse four underlined in my Bible. Somebody might argue to extend that to five or maybe even to six. That's fine. But the point is, God is judging those who have unjustly become rich.
And with God, there's no partiality. So how does this show us see calling? What are we called to do? How does this show us Jesus Christ? Powerful than anybody even the rich people. Yeah, definitely Jesus is the commander of the legions of armies, right? I could ask my father and he would give me a legion of angels Yeah, if they got the whole army from Donald Trump, our commander-in-chief, they may be able to fight one angel, right? But would they win? No, right? So rich people, is this meant to make them go, oh good, I can live in comfort and I don't have to worry or change my life at all? Nope. No, right?
This is saying, hold on, Jesus will judge. And so we humble ourselves before Jesus. We become like him. We love the poor. We care for the oppressed, the widow. Remember what James had said before in chapter one. pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this, to visit the orphan and widow in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted by the world.
My brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with partiality. I think that's what this whole thing is getting at, right? We can't be partial. And I think that was a danger in the early church. So God doesn't show favoritism to the rich or to the poor. Should we show favoritism? No. No, we should practice true religion, right?
So when there's an elderly person in the church, maybe a woman who has lost her husband, what can we do? Yeah, we can try to help her, right? What if it's an old man who's lost his wife? Yeah, we can help him. What about if there's a poor person in the church, what can we do? Yeah, help them, right? Do good to the poor, especially those who are of the household of faith. Okay, you ready to pray?
Father, we pray that you would please make us more and more like Jesus. We pray that we would turn away from our partiality. Father, it's really easy to give preference and favor to those who have in this life, who we see with excess and wealth, they seem to have power, and they are people of influence, even financially. Lord, we pray that we would be more like Jesus. That we would love those who cannot love us in return, cannot repay us. Lord, we pray that we would truly be worked by your Holy Spirit to do well. Help us, Lord, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, may the Lord of glory, the King of the armies bless you. May you walk in His ways, and we'll see you next time. Bye!