Episode Transcript
WEBVTT
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James Five versus seven through twelve.
This will be our text this evening.
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says. Be Patient, therefore,
brothers, until the coming of the Lord.
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See how the farmer waits for the
precious fruit of the earth, being
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patient about it, until it receives
the early and the late reigns. You
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also be patients. Establish your hearts
for the coming of the Lord is at
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hand. Do not grumble against one
another, brothers, so that you may
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not be judged. Behold, the
judge is standing at the door. As
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an example of suffering and patience.
Brothers, take the prophets who spoke in
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the name of the Lord. Behold, we consider those blessed. Who remains
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steadfast? You have heard of the
steadfastness of job. You have seen the
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purpose of the Lord, how the
Lord Is Compassionate and Merciful. But,
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above all, my brothers, do
not swear either by heaven or by Earth
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or by any other oath. But
let your yes be yes and your no
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be no, so that you may
not fall under condemnation. This is the
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word of God. Please be seated. Well, it is good to be
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back with the saints of Covenant.
Old PC has been awhile. I think
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I haven't been it's been a year
since I've been over here, so I've
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missed you. It's good to be
back. Thank you for inviting me.
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You know our text this evening.
It comes near the the end of this
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very practical book of James. Much
like the rest of James Letter. It's
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important. James has some important things
to say to us about practical wisdom.
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He says to us in these verses. He talks to us about patience and
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steadfastness and about reckoning with the future
when making decisions in the presence. So
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let me pray for God's help in
understanding this important passage tonight. Let's pray.
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O Lord, we asked that you
would help us to not only understand
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your word, but to believe your
word and then to do your word,
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being transformed by the spirit, that
the law might be written on our hearts.
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These things we ask in Jesus name. I'm in as some of you
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may know, I I spent a
large part of my adult life in the
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United States army and a lot of
that time was teaching in the army school
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system. have any of you ever
heard of the army way of teaching and
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know some of the folks from Rencon
Mountain. I told him about this last
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week. So here's the army way
of teaching. It's basically this. You
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tell him what you're going to tell
him, then you tell him, then
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you tell them what you just told
them and then finally you review. You
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tell him what you're going to tell
him, then you tell him, then
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you tell him what you just told
them and then you refuge. Well,
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James Basically does the same thing here. In these verses. He commands be
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patient, then he gives us an
illustration of the patient farmer and then he
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repeats the command be patient. Then
he goes on to give two more illustrations
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of patient endurance or steadfastness. He
talks about the prophets and he gives the
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example of job. You know,
it's a good way to teach. It
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gets through to most people. I
think it gets through to army people and
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I'm sure it gets through the good
presbyterians too. So we'll just have to
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wait and see if it's a good
way tonight. Now the key terminology of
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this passage are forms of two different
word groups, meaning patients three times in
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versus seven and eight once in verse
ten, and steadfastness twice in Verse Eleven.
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Now, in these verses, patients
is the self restraint that does not
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hastily retaliate against the wrong. Patience
is the self restraint that doesn't hastily retaliate
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whenever you're wrong, and steadfastness is
the temper that does not easily succumb under
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suffering. It's the temper that doesn't
easily succumb under suffering. So they're very
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closely related terms. I think it's
interesting that they describe a distinctly Christian virtue
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which is not a virtue. Was
Not a virtue at all to the Greeks,
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you know, for the Greeks that
was a virtue not to tolerate any
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insult or injury without taking vengeance.
Reminds me of what many Americans do today.
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You know, I think one of
our cultural characteristics is that we demand
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our rights, you know, we
stand up for them. Don't tread on
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me that sort of thing. But
James says here that for Christians the virtue
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of patience and steadfastness is to be
able to take revenge but to refuse to
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do so. I think it's also
important to note here that throughout this short
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passage the fundamental motivation for such patience
and steadfastness is the coming of the Lord,
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both in Salvation And in judgment.
You know Mark Lauderback, our assistant
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pastor at Rencon Mountain. He preached
a wonderful sermon on our Eastern Sunrise Service
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entitled the hope of the Resurrection is
Tex was First Corinthians fifty eight. Therefore,
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my beloved brothers, be steadfast,
immovable, always abounding in the work
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of the Lord, knowing that in
the Lord your Labor is not in vain.
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So the work of the Lord that
that Paul focused on in First Corinthians
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fifteen is the Christians hope of Christ's
resurrection. Now the work of the Lord
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that James Focuses on here in our
passage this evening, as the Christians Hope,
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is the last great event in redemptive
history. It's the second coming of
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Christ. So keep your bibles open. There to James Five, and let's
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take a look at these verses,
versus seven through twelve. I think you
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will have noticed how many times James
says brothers in this passage. I count
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four times, and we know that
when he says brothers he means brothers and
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sisters. So he's talking to us. James is talking to Christians, two
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believers, who are enduring trials,
and he's concerned to set before us the
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proper attitude, the proper frame of
mind that we have to have if we're
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going to persevere to the end.
He's concerned that we have the right focus
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in our lives if we're going to
be able to respond to the trials of
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life and an appropriate and Christian way. And so we see James advised to
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us in these verses is too old, very simple. First he says be
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patient when you suffer. Then second
he says remains steadfast when you suffer.
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Now, in the first six verses
of Chapter Five, James Talks about rich
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people who oppressed the poor and he
gives them a strong warning not to do
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that. He says don't do that, because God sees, God hears all
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this. And having said that to
the rich, he then turns his attention
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in verse seven to those the rich
were taking advantage of. He told the
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rich not to oppress the poort.
But since I think he assumes that in
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most cases they won't stop this,
then what are the poor to do?
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How are they to act in the
face of this? So James tells them
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here in the first place to be
patient. I want you to notice that.
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He's not telling them to be patient
because there's nothing else that they can
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do. He's not telling them that. He's not telling them to be patient
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because maybe the rich will then treat
them a little better. That's not what
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he says here. He says,
brothers and sisters, be patient, remembering
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the kind of Lord you serve.
When you remember that, you remember that
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the God you serve is a just
God, that the Lord, Jesus Christ,
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his son, is coming again in
judgment. The time is coming when
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the injustices that are now being inflicted
will all be made right. You knows,
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I'm thirty seven. I think is
a marvelous song of encouragement to righteous
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people. Let me just read a
couple of verses from Psalm thirty seven.
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Let me read verses one through nine
of this wonderful psalm. It talks about
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this. David says, Fret not
yourself because of evil doers. Be Not
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envious of wrong doers, for they
will soon fade like the grass, whether
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like the green herb. Trust in
the Lord and do good, dwell in
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the Land and befriend faithfulness, delight
yourself in the Lord and he will give
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you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the Lord, trust
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in him and he will act.
He will bring forth your righteousness as the
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light and your justice as the noonday. Be still before the Lord and wait
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patiently for him. Fret not yourself
over the one who prospers in his way,
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over the man who carries out evil
devices. Refrain from anger, forsake
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wrath. Fret Not Yourself. It
tends only to evil, for the evil
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doers shall be cut off, but
those who wait for the Lord shall inherit
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the land. You know, God
saints are described in that wonderful psalm as
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they're poor and they're needy. There
are suffering persecution at the hands of wicked
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people, and they're tempted to be
envious of the prosperity the wellbeing of the
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wicked and, I think, even
paradoxically, to be impatient for the wicked
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to receive judgment. But in that
situation, and we've all been there,
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the psalmist encourages the right it's to
be still before the Lord and to wait
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patiently for him. Not to get
angry, because God will certainly vindicate the
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Righteous and destroy the wicked. Well, James says the same thing here.
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He's writing to believers who are suffering, people who believe in a future world
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beyond this one. They believe in
a sovereign Lord. They believe in justice,
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because God is a just God.
James says to them, if you're
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oppressed, then be patient, because
when Jesus comes back, justice will be
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done. So he wants them to
focus in on that day of the coming
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of the Lord Jesus. They need
to live their lives in light of that
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specific focal point. You know,
it's the coming of Christ for which we're
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all waiting. All of life is
to be lived in light of that event,
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which is the next grade and also
the last great event in redemptive history,
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and it's in that sense it's coming
soon. James says so here.
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So James is saying to us that
the Christian life is not a sprint.
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The Christian life is a marathon and
the finish line is the second coming,
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and it's not anything less than that. I think he's saying that we need
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to cultivate a mindset for the long
haul. We need to patiently wait for
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that next great event and redemptive history, the coming of Christ. The Christian
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life is then, as one author, Eugene Peterson, I think it was
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he, called it. He called
it a long obedience in the same direction.
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Now the direction, the goal,
the purpose, the aim is the
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coming of Christ. To get here, James Cells us were to be faithful
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and patient as we wait for that
day, and James Uses as an example
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here that of a far armor who
has to patiently wait for the earth to
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produce his crops. Tad You can
confirm this. He plants the seed at
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the time of the early autumn,
October rains, that he has to wait
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for the necessary late spring rains which
caused the grain to mature for the harvest.
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You know, there's a story told
about an ungodly farmer who lived in
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a predominantly Christian community. All the
other farmers observed the Lord's Day and they
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went to church on Sunday. This
man's farm was right across the road from
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the Church and so, to demonstrate
his independence from God, he made it
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a point to plow his feels on
Sunday mornings. Every Sunday he did that.
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The summer went by, harvest came
and after the harvest this man wrote
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a letter to the local newspaper explaining
his position. He said, all summer
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long, when others went to church, I've been working my fields. God
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hasn't punished me for my action.
In fact, not only have my crops
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succeeded, but I've even been able
to raise more crops than those who rested
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one day of the week. What
do you say to that? Well,
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the editor of the paper, who
was a Christian. He printed the letter
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in full, but down at the
bottom, under this man's article, he
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added this. He said God doesn't
settle his accounts in October. This is
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what James says here. We may
undergo persecution in this life, we may
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endure trouble, we may see the
wicked prospering while we're suffering, but that's
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not the end of the matter.
God will eventually, when he comes back,
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maybe tomorrow, he will eventually settle
his accounts. You see, it's
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only the October of our lives.
In the meantime we have to wait patiently
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for the spring, rings wait patiently
for Christ to come back. Then he
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will set things right. Some of
you know how much I love to read.
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I particularly military history and biographies of
Great Military Leaders. I recently read
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an account of the Duke of Wellington
and his great battle against Napoleon at the
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battle of Waterloo. Some of you
may know that Wellington's army was basically in
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experience. To it was full.
He had nothing but raw recruits. It's
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all he had. They weren't battle
hardened. He didn't have many very veterans.
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He was short of noncommissioned officers.
Didn't have many commissioned officers. So
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this was his simple strategy against Napoleon
and the French army. His battle plan
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was basically this. Get pounded all
day and wait for the Prussians. Get
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pounded all day and wait for the
Prussians. That was it. He couldn't
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attack. The only thing he could
do was to stand there and wait until
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his ally, the Prussians, got
there, to hold on and tell the
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Prussians arrived and could then amount an
attack against Napoleon. And that's what he
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did at Waterloo. He got pounded
all day, but he held on.
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The PRUSSIANS arrived and the battle of
Waterloo was one. You See, the
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point while Wellington had to focus on
was the arrival of the Prussians. If
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they didn't arrive, game over,
but when they arrived, victory was at
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hand, and I think in a
very real sense, you know, that's
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the way the Christian life is.
We may be getting pounded all day,
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but we need to patiently endure until
Christ comes again and victory is at hand.
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Well, James goes on here in
verse and I and he he also
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warns Christians not to be grumblers while
we patiently wait. I think we can
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understand why James puts this in here, can't we? Now? Isn't this
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grumbling one of the temptations that almost
always accompanies the presence of difficult circumstances like
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these that James Describes here? It
is, I think, blaming others.
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It's a form of impatience. Typically, we vent our frustration on those who
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are near us, the members are
our family, the members of our spiritual
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community. You know, I've said
this to many people. I think men
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often come home after a tough day
and what do you do? What do
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they often do? Well, we
kick the dog with you out the wife.
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You know, I think the thought
here. It's akin to what we
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find in proverbs twenty, verse twenty
two. Do not say I will repay
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evil. Wait for the Lord and
he will deliver you. You know,
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so many of our hard words,
whether or not we admit it to ourselves,
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they're they're an expression of our own
impatience, you know, our sense
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of having been wronged and the Lord
not doing anything about it. So what
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do we do? We often take
matters into our own hands, and that
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almost never turns out to be good. I think we need to watch our
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words because, as James says here, the coming of the Lord is at
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hand. He says, the judge
is standing at the door. You know,
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one of my favorite hymns is for
all the saints, was written in
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one thousand nine hundred and six by
Ralph Vaughan Williams. You know what?
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We sang it often at funerals.
It's going to be our closing him this
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evening. The premise of that wonderful
hymn for all the saints. It's it.
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Basically it's a prayer of Thanksgiving to
God for the way he caused his
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people to persevere to the end,
that God was their hope, their one
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true light during some of their dark
days. You know, in the last
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two stands has William is, he
speaking of our resurrection when Christ comes again
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in the last day. And this
is what he says. These are the
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last two standsas of that him,
he says. But low there breaks a
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yet more Glorious Day. The saints
triumphant rise and Bright Array. The King
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of glory passes on his way,
Allelujah, Allelujah, from Earth's wide bounds,
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from oceans farthest coast, through gates
of Pearl Streams in the countless host
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saying to father, son and Holy
Ghost, Hallelujah, Hallelujah. You know,
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that's the point, isn't it?
That's what we're working for, isn't
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it? That's quite that's why Christians
do what they do. That's our hope,
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isn't it? You know, true
confessions, there are points in my
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life, as I know there are
in yours. I get discouraged in ministry.
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No, I'm I get discouraged by
my own sin, when I came
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in repeatedly to my wayward desires,
my disordered desires, when I wonder why
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I'm doing this. You know all
this too. Then I remind myself that
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there will come a day when I
will stand with all of you and we
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will see the King of glory passing
on his way and we'll turn to one
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another and we'll say, this is
why we did it, this is why
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we preach, this is why we
witness, this is why we prayed,
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this is why we worked. This
is what we were hoping for, you
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know, where we were hoping for, the day when we would see the
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coming King of glory right passing on
his way. And, Dear ones,
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let me tell you this. We
can't endure patiently anything, anything if that
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is our hope, and that's what
James is telling us here. We've got
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to fix our eyes, he says, establish our hearts on the coming of
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the King of glory and then,
in the midst of trials, that God
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will surely bring our ways, whatever
they are, we will be able to
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patiently endure them. Well, James
goes on, he continues. He tells
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us we're not only to be patient, but we're also to remain steadfast.
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It's a little bit different not to
succumb to anger, bitterness, you know,
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under temptation, trials, frustrations.
You know, I think one problem
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that that we have with patience is
that it almost always appears to us to
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be passive, not doing anything.
You know, you're probably like me.
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We're usually activists, like most of
us are, activists. We often get
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this false idea that that for us
to exercise patient we have to sit quietly,
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no hold our tongue, wait and
trust is someday will be vindicated by
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God. Stiff upper lip, let
go and let God and all that.
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You know. There might be a
little truth in that, but not much,
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and I think that what James is
getting at here in these concluding verses
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when he says it were to be
not only patient but were to remain steadfast,
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is that we're to be patient in
an active way, remaining steadfast,
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standing firm. I think that suggests
that we're to hold tightly to what we
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have, bearing up under opposition,
praising God, but laying hold of of
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all this ammunition that God gives us. Not only laying hold of it,
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but shooting it in the right direction. Think it means giving testimony to the
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Gospel whenever that situation demands it presents
itself, never repeating and never retreating from
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what we know. Means that we're
to endure as the ambassadors of Christ.
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You have a mission assigned to us. We're to make sure that we really
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live for him, that were we
should always be about his business. You
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know, in James Time is today. Christians often respond to this. Well,
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that's easy for you to say.
You're not suffering like I'm suffering.
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If you were, you wouldn't say
those things. And to answer the those
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objections, James is pretty wise here. He gives a couple of examples of
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the suffering of Godly men in history
and he reminds people that they went through
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only what other Christians have experienced.
First and versus to ten and eleven.
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He directs their attention to the Prophets. Now it's interesting he doesn't name the
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prophets that he has in mind here, but all of these prophets endured some
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sort of rejection, some short of
abuse in their lives. Moses, Moses
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had to put up with a stiff
neck, rebellious, grumbling Israelites. You
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know, the Israelites were always griping
about something and they almost always blamed him
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for what they were going through.
And when they were blaming him, of
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course they were blaming God. David
was relentlessly pursued by Saul Jeremiah. He
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endured opposition throughout his ministry and it
was they brought him so much sorrow that
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he became known as what as the
weeping Prophet Ezekiel endured the death of his
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wife during the course of his ministry. Now Daniel, he was ripped from
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his homeland as a teenager. He
was they he was sixteen years old.
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Later he was thrown into a den
of lines because of his faithfulness to God.
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Hoseiah endured a heartbreaking marriage. Amos
face lies, lies and scorn.
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In the New Testament, John the
Baptist was imprisoned. He was beheaded for
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his testimony of God's truth. You
know, Hebrews Lovin list this whole host
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of lesser known prophets who were it
says. They're in Hebrews Eleven. They
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were jeered and flogged, they were
chained and imprisoned, they were stoned,
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they were sought into they were put
to death by the sword and went around
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in sheepskin and goat skins, destitute, persecuted, mistreated. You know,
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we think of Stephen. As he
was being stone he reminded his executioners that
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there was not a messenger that God
had sent who had not been rejected in
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his time. Stephen said, was
there ever a prophet your father's did not
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persecute? They even killed those who
predicted the coming of the righteous one,
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and of course, the righteous one, the epitome, the culmination of God's
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revelation, the Messenger who was,
above all other messengers, the coming King.
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He was killed as well. Now
hear what James is not saying.
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He's not he's not encouraging us here
to seek out persecution, but he is
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saying that if you and dure persecution
for the sake of righteousness, you need
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to also remember that it's not in
common for that to happen to God's people.
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We should expect it. You know, all the profits suffered for their
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person for their testimony. Are we
to think, then, that simply because
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we live in America, we won't
suffer for our profession of faith, when
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we remain steadfast, when we take
a stand for God's teaching and attempt to
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live by that teaching? Do we
really think that we won't pay for that?
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Of course we will. We will
pay for that. But James says,
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we will be blessed if we endure, if we remain steadfast. Now,
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what we go through now is nothing, nothing compared to the glory that
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awaits us when Christ comes back to
meet us in the air and take us
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to heaven. So James says here
very clearly. Remember the prophets. Be
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encouraged to run your Christian race with
Diligence and faithfulness to the end, because
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it's worth it. So James doesn't
mention any specific profits here, but he
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does mention one individual, not a
prophet so far as we know, but
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nevertheless one whose name is nearly synonymous
with patient suffer ring, and that's this
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man job. You know, most
of us are familiar with this incredible story
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of the endurance of job and many
trials. Let me just give you a
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quick summary of it. Job was
a righteous man. He certainly wasn't sinless,
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but he did live an upright life
before God. And job endured unimaginable,
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unexplained suffering. You know, the
fierce attacks of Satan resulted in the
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loss of all these kids, lost
his wealth, his health, he lost
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his reputation and, I think worst
of all, he lost his sense of
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God's presence in his life. Now, it's true, if you've read the
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book of Job, you know that
he did vocalize his misery. He bemoaned
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the terrible counsel of those misguided would
be friends that he had. He cried
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out in confusion to God, why
is this happening? Yet through all of
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this, even though he didn't understand
why all this was happening to it happening
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to him, job knelt down and
he worshiped God. Remember what he said.
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Naked, I came from my mother's
womb. Naked, I shall depart.
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The Lord gave, the Lord is
taken away. May the name of
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the Lord be praised. And the
text says, and all of this,
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job did not sin by charging God
with wrongdoing. And later, after all
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his terrible stuff had happened to him, we find job saying triumphantly, though
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he slay me. Yet well,
I hope in him. What a great
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story of patience and steadfastness. Now, what an example job is to us,
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to encourage us, when we suffer
trials, to endure, to be
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patient, to stand firm, realizing
that through these trials God is strengthening us,
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he's perfecting us and in the end
he's going to richly bless us,
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not necessarily with physical blessings, like
he did job, but assuredly with every
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spiritual blessing in the heavens. And
so our passage ends in verse twelve with
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this somewhat puzzling saying about oaths,
which, by the way, is almost
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a direct quote from Jesus sermon on
the Mountain Matthew Five. Why is that
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verse here? What do oaths have
to do with trials and patience and endurance
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and suffering? Now, why,
in a world with James suddenly say but
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above all, my brothers do not
swear either by Heaven or by Earth?
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What is that? What does that
have to do with anything? Well,
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I'm not sure, but I think
there's a couple of things going on here.
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First of all, you know I
think this, but above all,
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that little phrase suggest that when we're
tempted to lose heart or to grumble,
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you know, the one thing we
must never do is to begin using the
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name, the Lord's name in vain, to use the name of the Almighty
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to sort of punctuate our speech in
the heat of the moment, or to
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express our unhappiness about the state of
our affairs by some explosive or reverent oath.
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I think that's really part of what
what James is talking about here,
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but I think even more importantly,
he may be warning against a foolish response
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to the oppression of the rich described
in the first six verses of this chapter.
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You know, I think it's really
true that people do tend to respond
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to times of trouble and distress with
unrealistic pledges to God. I think they
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tended. We tend to do that. You know, be in military and
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you know, I think if foxhole
conversions, you know, when soldiers they
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pledge themselves to this lifetime commitment to
odd if he would just get them out
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of their present fix. Then when
they get out of it they immediately forget
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what they valued. I think James
could be saying here's something like that,
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that it's that it's better to be
genuine, let your yes byes, let
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your no be known rather than be
dramatic, better to to mean what you
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say, that they have these unfulfilled, unrealistic vowels hanging over you. If
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you make a value, you're supposed
to keep it. You know, I
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think the warning against vows is therefore
pot of part of James called to patience,
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part of this call to have restraint
in speech as in other daily behaviors,
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behavior such as watching your tongue,
which he talks about earlier in the
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book. So that's all I know
about that last verse. I'm sorry,
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let me conclude this evening. I'm
going to tell you a story of how
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living in light of the second coming
of Christ really had an impact not only
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on one man but on an entire
nation. I told this story to the
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ladies group over at Rencon the other
day. It's a wonderful story. It's
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a story of a man by the
name of Anthony Ashley Cooper. How many
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of heard of Anthony Ashley Cooper?
Anybody? Well, he was the famous
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Lord Shaft's Lury of the nineteen century
England. I'll tell you a little bit
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about Lord Shaftsbury. Now the story. John Stott actually reports this story and
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his wonderful book the incomparable Christ,
and I want to read just a couple
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of pages from that book about Lord
Shaftsbury. So bear with me, stick
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with me on this. This is
really good. Born in eighteen od one
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cooper had an unhappy childhood, neglected
and abused by his parents. His only
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solace was their housekeeper, Anna Maria
Mills, who told him Bible Stories,
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taught him to pray and seems to
have led him to personal faith in the
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Lord Jesus Christ. At the age
of sixteen, while at Harrow School,
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he saw a group of drunken men
drop a poor man's coffin in the street,
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cursing and laughing as they did so. He was second and disturbed by
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this incident, later calling at the
origin of my public career, for then
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and there he resolved to dedicate his
life to the cause of the poor and
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the weak. He entered parliament in
eighteen twenty six, aged only twenty five,
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and soon began his program of humanitarian
reform, seeking to remedy some of
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the worst consequences of the industrial revolution. His unremitting Labor continued for nearly sixty
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years, and the legislation for which
he was largely responsible represents an astonishing achievement.
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In eighteen forty two, the coal
mines act prohibited underground work in mines
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and cooleeries by women and girls and
reduce the hours worked by boys. In
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eighteen forty five, the lunacy acts
secured the humane treatment of the insane and
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appointed fifteen commissioners in lunacy, of
which he was won for forty years.
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In eighteen forty seven, eighteen fifty
and eighteen fifty nine, he palletted through
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parliament the ten hours factory act,
which regulated working hours for women and children.
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He was the acknowledged leader of all
this factory reform. In eighteen fifty
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one, the Common Lodging House Act
sought to end the unsanitary and overcrowded conditions
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of lodging houses, laid down acceptable
standards and permitted local authorities to inspect and
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supervise them. Even this list is
far from complete. Ashley Cooper also founded
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the ragged school union and busied himself
on behalf of boy chimney sweeps, flower
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girls, orphans, prostitutes, prisoners, handicapped people and crippled children. Although
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his parliamentary bills were several times defeated, he refused to give up. I
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must persevere. His Journal records.
What motivated him? To begin with,
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he believed and he loved the Gospel. I am essentially and from deep rooted
404
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conviction, he wrote in his diary, and Evangelical of the evangelicals. This
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means that, in particular, he
emphasized the divinity of Christ, his atoning
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sacrifice and his coming kingdom, and
his good works of love and justice were
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the natural outflow of his faith.
During the S, however, he became
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firmly and vitally convinced of the Second
Coming of Christ. It entered into all
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his thoughts and feelings, wrote Edwin
Hotter. It stimulated him in the midst
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of all his labors. It gave
tone and color to all his hopes for
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the future. For there is no
real remedy, he often said, for
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all this mass of misery, but
in the return of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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Why do we not plead for it
every time we hear the clock strike?
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I cannot tell you, Cooper once
said, the hotter his authorized biographer,
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how it was that this subject first
took hold of me. It has
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been, as far as I can
remember, a subject to which I have
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always held tenaciously belief in it has
been a moving principle in my life,
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for I see everything going on in
the world subordinate to this one great event.
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It's not surprising, therefore, that
Cooper's favorite text was the second from
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last verse in the Bible. Yes, I am coming soon. Amen,
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come, Lord Jesus. Revelation twenty
two, twenty. His lifelong diary,
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to which he committed his private thoughts, is sprankled all through with the same
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expression of pent up longing. It
was a model he had inscribed in Greek
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on the flaps of the envelopes he
used every day. A few years before
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he died he left instructions that revelation
two thousand two twenty should be one of
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00:41:16.150 --> 00:41:22.539
the three texts engraved on his tombstone, and on his deathbed he kept muttering
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come Lord Jesus. Anthony Ashley Cooper, seventh earl of Shaftesbury, died in
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one thousand eight hundred and eighty five. So richly had he deserved the epitaph
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the poor man's earl. The tens
of thousands of people from all walks of
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life lying the route taken by the
cortis carrying his body from his home in
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00:41:50.000 --> 00:41:54.440
Grosvenor Square to Westminster Abbey, there
was a great outpouring of public grief,
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love and respect. Representatives of the
homes, asylums, schools and societies that
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00:42:02.070 --> 00:42:07.590
he had founded carried banners on which
were emblazoned sentences from Matthew Twenty Five.
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I was hungry and you gave me
meat. I was thirsty and you gave
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00:42:14.869 --> 00:42:20.619
me drink. I was a stranger
and you took me in naked and your
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00:42:20.659 --> 00:42:23.300
clothed me. I was sick and
you visited me I was in prison and
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you came to me. Even the
pouring rain could not dampen their spirits.
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My Lord's explained the Duke of Argyle
and a political speech delivered soon afterward.
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The social reforms of the past century
have not been due to a political party.
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They have been due to the influence, the character and the perseverance of
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one man. I prefer, of
course, the Lord Shaftesbury. The Times
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00:42:52.079 --> 00:42:58.829
newspaper also acknowledged him as a man
who changed the whole social condition of England.
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00:42:58.829 --> 00:43:07.670
And why? What had been his
incentive? He tells us. Toward
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the end of his life he said, I do not think that in the
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last forty years I have lived one
conscious are that was not influenced by the
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thought of our Lord's return. So
this is the question. If, if
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the living prospect of the Lord's return
can change an entire society for the better,
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how much will it change your life
and mine to reckon with it every
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day, even every hour of the
day? You know what a huge difference
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in perspective it must make to consider
our circumstances at any moment in light of
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00:43:57.789 --> 00:44:02.789
the Second Coming, when Christ will
vindicate US, when he will make all
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00:44:02.909 --> 00:44:12.699
things right, how differently we will
view our problems, how much more carefully
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00:44:12.739 --> 00:44:17.219
we will speak of others, how
much more carefully we will speak to others,
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how much more patient and resolute we
will be in enduring opposition and remaining
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steadfast and trial. You see,
dear ones, that's this, is what
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it means to live by faith,
to behave. Is anyone ought to behave?
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Who knows that the Lord is near? Who knows that the Lord is
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standing at the door? Lord,
make it so in our lives. Today,
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let's bring
