Bible Commentaries
James 5

Verses 7-8

THE LESSON OF PATIENCE

‘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 the latter rain. Be ye also patient.’

James 5:7-8

The patience of the Christian is inspired by hope. Like his Master, he endures ‘for the joy that is set before him.’ Like the husbandman, he waits, knowing that the harvest will ripen in its own appointed time. And beyond all other consolations, his patience fastens itself upon the sure word of promise, ‘the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.’

‘Be ye also patient.’

I. How necessary this admonition is in our self-culture.—We are often inclined to lose heart because the work of grace in us proceeds so slowly. We seem to make no progress. Failure follows failure. The old temptations come back to us long after we had thought them put to flight for ever. The old weakness shows itself long after we had fondly fancied it removed. And in a spirit of fretfulness we imagine that all our labour is lost and the harvest-tide of holiness will never come. Has nature no message of comfort for us in such moments of despondency? Do the fruits of the earth ripen instantaneously?

II. No less necessary is this command in our public work for Christ than in our culture of the inner life. A characteristic of our age is its impatient looking for results. It counts heads when the Master only counts hearts. It is feverish in its desire to see something in return for its efforts and expenditure. Christian worker, be on your guard against such a spirit as this. It is the foe to all that is best in religious effort. Results are not ours, but God’s; our part is not to grow weary in well-doing.

III. Yet once more we need to hear this admonition.—In the sorrows of life we are apt to grow fretful and repining, and to forget the glorious ‘afterward’ that is in store for those who are ‘exercised thereby.’ The storms of winter are as necessary to the harvest as the suns of summer. The ice and the snow, the keen edge of the northern blast, the hard rigour of the frost and the heavy torrents of the leaden clouds all come forth from the treasury of God, and have their beneficent purpose in the economy of nature as truly as the ‘golden sunshine’ and the ‘vernal air.’ Nor is it otherwise in the economy of grace.

IV. ‘Be patient, therefore, brethren.’—Early husbandry teaches us this lesson, but how much more impressively is it taught us when we lift our eyes from earth to heaven. ‘My Father is the Husbandman.’ How long He has to wait for the harvest sometimes! Not a single season, not a year, but a score of years must often pass before He reaps from our lives their harvest of holy fruit. Long ago the good seed was dropped into the hearts of some of us by the Spirit of God, but He has not reaped His harvest yet. The weeds seem to grow so fast in us and the seed so slowly. The hair perhaps is beginning to be touched with silver, and yet the lessons of childhood have not borne their fruit. The harvest is so slow in coming! ‘Behold, the Husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit, and hath long patience for it.’ Long patience! Yes, indeed; the patience and long-suffering of our God are marvellous, and some of us have strained them perhaps almost to the breaking-point. Shall we strain them longer yet? Let the infinite, condescending, redeeming love of a patient God begin to find its reward in us to-day. Let the Saviour gather in His sheaves at last. Hold the harvest back from Him no longer, but bid Him come and reap where he has so richly sown.

Rev. G. A. Sowter.

Illustration

‘Once when the philosopher of Chelsea was conversing with an English Bishop about the slow advance of Christianity, Carlyle asked with sudden vehemence, “Bishop, have you a creed?” “Assuredly,” was the Bishop’s answer, “I have a creed which is as firm as the very ground beneath my feet.” “Then if you have such a creed,” replied Carlyle, “ you can afford to wait.” And so can we.’

(SECOND OUTLINE)

ARE MISSIONS A FAILURE?

The Christian duty of working for the extension of our Lord’s kingdom upon the earth by supporting missions to the heathen is a subject which has claims on our attention at all seasons of the year, because every truth of the Christian creed, and every blessing of the Christian life which we successively commemorate, suggests high privileges of our own, and the need of those who who do not share them with us.

Now it is a matter of common remark that Christian missions are often looked upon somewhat coldly even by well-disposed people, much more coldly than ought to be possible for Christians with the love of the Lord Jesus Christ in their hearts.

I. The main reason for this coldness is, at least in very many cases, a mistaken estimate of what missions can be reasonably expected to achieve. People point to the large sums of money that are collected annually in this country and elsewhere, to the list of devoted men who give their lives to the missionary cause, to the sanction of Church authority, to the wide popular sympathies that are equally enlisted in the favour of missions, and then they ask: ‘What does all this come to? What is the measure of achieved success? Where are the numerous converts who might be expected to be forthcoming after all this expenditure of varied effort? Is not the disproportion between what is said and done and the actual result so serious as to warrant the disappointment which is thus expressed—a disappointment which is due not merely to a sense of failure, but to an accompanying suspicion of unreality?’ Yet this only is the natural product of one feature of the temper of our day. The human mind is largely influenced by the outward circumstances of the successive forms of civilisation in which it finds itself. We assume that the rate at which we travel and send messages must necessarily have its counterpart in all meritorious forms of human effort.

II. What is this modern way of looking at missions but an endeavour to apply to the kingdom of Divine grace those rules of investment, and return which are very properly kept in view in a house of commerce? Do you not see that this demand leaves God, the Great Missionary of all, out of the calculation? God has His own times for pouring out His Spirit, His own methods of silent preparation, His own measures of speed and of delay, and He does not take missionaries or the promoters of missionary societies into His confidence. He has a larger outlook than they, and more comprehensive plans, and whether He gives or withholds His gifts, of this we may be sure, in view of the truest and broadest interests of His spiritual kingdom: we appeal to His bounty, but we can but do as He bids us, and abide His time. As the eyes of a servant look unto the eyes of the master, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the eyes of her mistress, even so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God, till He have mercy upon us; or, as St. James puts it, like as ‘the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.’

III. Not that this reverent patience in waiting for God’s blessing is any excuse whatever for relaxing the zealous activity with which missionary efforts should be prosecuted by the Church of God. The husbandman does not the less plough the soil or the less sow the seed because he is uncertain whether his labour will be followed by the early and the latter rain. If he does not plough and sow he knows that the rain will be useless at least to him. It is quite possible for a secret indifference to the interests of Christ and His kingdom to veil itself under the garb of reverence, to refuse to help the work of Christian missions because we do not know how far God will promote a particular mission; but that is only one of the many forms of self-deceit which we Christians too often employ in order to evade Christian duties. Duties are for us, the results with God. We have no doubt, if we are Christians, as to what is our duty in this matter. Before us lies the greater part of the human race sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death, with no true knowledge of God, and of the real meaning of life and of that which follows it; and above us there rises the Cross—that Cross to which we are indebted for peace and hope, that Cross on which He hangs Who is the only name given among men whereby men may be saved; and in our ears there sounds the command, uttered eighteen centuries ago, but always binding, always new, ‘Ye shall be witnesses unto Me and unto all the world to preach the gospel to every creature.’ Our part is clear, even though after a century of labour we should have to say with the prophet: ‘I have laboured in vain.’

Verse 11

HUMAN SUFFERING AND DIVINE PITY

‘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.’

James 5:11

Human suffering and Divine pity; how may these be reconciled? This is the question to which Job’s story gives an answer.

I. An apparent contradiction.—The sufferings of the man seem to contradict the mercy of God. As we consider ‘the patience of Job,’ how hard to see ‘that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy.’ Two things make the difficulty very great.

( a) The extent of the suffering. Distresses come upon him from all quarters. As we remember that this awful transformation has been accomplished by the direct permission of the Most High, it seems the bitterest irony to write beneath that sad spectacle of human woe, ‘that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.’

( b) The character of the sufferer. ‘There is none like my servant Job in all the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil.’ Job’s friends imagined that because he was a great sufferer he must therefore be a great sinner, and this belief coloured all their speech. When a man’s prosperity is attended with hurtful result to him in his character and life, we can recognise its downfall as a necessary chastisement. But having God’s own testimony to this good man’s excellence we find it hard to say as we look upon him, ‘The Lord is very pitiful.’

II. The reconciliation.—‘Ye have seen the end of the Lord.’ We cannot see the end of the Lord in our distresses. This is our trial. In Job’s case the end is visible, and as we see it, we learn to acquiesce in the Divine action, and can understand and believe that the end of the Lord in all subsequent cases will reveal the Divine mercy. The expression is capable of two meanings. It may mean—

( a) The design of sufferings: the object towards which suffering is directed. One end of Job’s distresses was— the overthrow of evil. This man was God’s chosen champion, not a sinner found out in his sin, but the best and bravest of God’s warriors, called to go where the fight between good and evil was hottest, that he might baffle and defeat the evil one himself. The instruction and consolation of mankind. The good accomplished by him in the days of health and prosperity is little and limited beside that conferred upon the world by him through his sorrows. Sorrowing humanity throughout many generations has come to his side to hear his words, and to find in them light and comfort. His story is the mirror into which the desolate and distressed gaze, that they may trace their own features and find relief. The higher knowledge of God. The deep longing of the afflicted soul is to see God, to hear God’s voice. And God did appear to him, filling him with humility, with an overwhelming consciousness of his own impurity, but at the same time removing all his dark misapprehensions and filling his soul with light and peace. As we consider these objects realised by suffering we can declare, ‘The Lord is very pitiful.’

( b) ‘ The end of the Lord,’ simply in the sense of termination. There is a Divine limit to suffering. The end with Job was not simply deliverance from all his sorrows, but also abundant compensation. The Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than the beginning.

III. The human condition.—‘The patience of Job.’ In order that suffering and pity may be reconciled and the Divine end realised, there must be patience. We must bear without murmuring, without resentment and rebellion, the sufferings that come, and wait ‘the end of the Lord.’ It may not come soon. It may not come here. But it will come. We must, taught and inspired by this example, calmly, humbly, hopefully wait until it is seen.

Illustration

‘The book of Job has made a very profound and lasting impression upon mankind. Not due to its dramatic power, its high antiquity, its surpassing literary merit, but to the solution it furnishes of the darkest problem of human life; the light it throws upon the purposes and ways of God; its depth of human feeling. There is a Divine voice that speaks to us in it, and there is a great human heart beating beneath its pages. Men will never cease to hear of the patience of Job, so long as sorrow, and loss, and pain have to be borne; so long as death is here, and we have to stand beside open graves.’

Verse 16

PRAYER AND LIFE

‘The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.’

James 5:16

Prayer is at all times a subject of supreme importance—such importance that it is quite impossible to overstate its value. It is at once man’s highest duty and his greatest blessing. It follows almost naturally from our belief in a living God. Prayer is a duty laid upon all. By prayer we are to bring down blessings from heaven for ourselves, by prayer we are to secure health to the sick, strength to the weak, succour to the tempted, recovery to the fallen. How, then, dare we cease to pray when there is so much depending on our prayers? Yet it is plain that we often ask in vain. The answer is also plain. ‘Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss.’ We do not fulfil the conditions of effectual prayer, and so our prayers avail but little. What, then, may we do in order that the promises made to prayer may be fulfilled?

I would but mention three things which will help us towards more successful prayer.

I. We must give time to prayer.—How often are we told of hurried prayers, and shortened prayers, and sometimes of forgotten prayers! Prayer so often is crowded out of our life in the hurry and bustle of the day. Prayer is the very recognition of God in our life, and a prayerless life must needs be a Godless life. It is no excuse to say, ‘I am not fit to pray.’ Even to go through the form of prayer is better, surely, than nothing. It keeps alive, at any rate, a habit which, by the grace of God, may some day take fresh life again. Have, then, fixed times for prayer day by day, and keep to them.

II. We must take trouble over our prayers.—Prayer is not an easy thing. Of all mental exercises, it has been said, prayer is the most severe. It requires the exercise of all the faculties that we possess. Prayer will never reach up to the throne of God if it is offered without effort and pains and care. We have to wrestle strenuously with the temptations and distractions that await us and hamper us in our prayers. There must be a concentration of the will. A discipline of the mind has to be brought to this exercise of prayer, together with a determination that we will at all costs break through the obstacles which oppose the utterance of our prayers, that they may reach up to the Throne of Grace. How many a one has abandoned prayer in despair just for the lack of effort, just for the want of realising this great truth, that trouble and pains are needed if prayer is to be effectual! There is nothing in life that can be carried on without effort. The prayer of a righteous man, to avail much, must be fervent.

III. The life must correspond to the exercise of prayer.—Who is this righteous man in His most perfect form? Our Lord Himself; and if our prayer is to be united with His great intercession, it must be the prayer of a righteous man. Our life must prepare us for our prayers, just as much as our prayers will prepare us for our life. Worldliness, carelessness, selfishness, sin, shut out the sight of God and prevent our prayers reaching up to God, and so prevent the answer, and bring failure. To pray to God out of a sinful heart is only to beat against a fast-closed door which nothing but penitence will open.

—Rev. A. G. Deedes.

Illustration

‘Let us try to use the Rogation days for setting our life of prayer more in order, renewing the earnestness of it. Let us see that it has its own allotted time day by day set apart as a sacred engagement, that nothing must interfere with. Let us see that we do not leave our prayers to take their chance in our hurried life. Let us look to it also that we take pains with our prayers. Do not let us be content to bring a weary body and a fagged brain to the service of God in prayer. And let us see to it, above all, that our life is true and sincere and holy. So only may we hope that our prayers may be the prayers of a righteous man, and merit the promise that attaches to them that they shall avail much for ourselves and those for whom we pray. So only may we be certain in claiming the promise which the Lord has given us—“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” ’

(SECOND OUTLINE)

THE RIGHTEOUS MAN’S PRAYER

A ‘righteous man’ means a justified man. And here is the comfort: the humblest believer may go and plead the promise, and may go in the simple confidence that Christ has justified him; and though both he and his prayer be utterly vile, still its unworthiness does not destroy its worthiness or destroy its claim, for God hath written it, and He cannot deny it, ‘The effectual fervent prayer of a justified man availeth much.’

I. The power of prevailing with God in anything is the Christ that is in it.—‘Where two or three are gathered together in My name.’ ‘Whatsoever ye shall ask in My name.’ It is the ‘My name’ which is the determining point. For the real force of every prayer lies in its concluding words, therefore always make them the most emphatic words in your prayer; say them very slowly, very honouringly, very believingly, ‘Through Jesus Christ our Lord.’

II. But it must be ‘effectual fervent.’—There is some difficulty in arriving at an accurate definition of the meaning of these words, for in the original the words are but one, and the first and closest signification is, wrought in; the wrought-in prayer, ‘the prayer wrought in the soul of a justified man availeth much.’ Therefore the primary idea is that the prayer that ‘avails much’ is a prayer that is wrought into a man’s soul by the Holy Spirit.

III. This strong power God has put into our hands.—Can you require more? Take it downstairs with you after well using it in your own room; use it in the family—take it out with you when you go to your business—and do not separate from it when you enter upon your pleasures. Bring it back again to your room. Bring it up with you here. It is the real strength of everything in this world. Many people go on well for a time. But if you feel this, I am quite sure that the success, and the power, and the satisfaction of everything in the world depends upon the measure of the prayer that you put into it. As a man’s prayer is, so is the man.

Verses 19-20

HUMAN AGENCY IN THE SINNER’S CONVERSION TO GOD

‘Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him; 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.’

James 5:19-20

The text suggests for us the great object of Christian zeal, the means of its accomplishment, and presents us with some motives to engage in it.

I.—The great object of Christian zeal is the conversion of the sinner.—This implies, in general, a turning of the sinner from his sins to God. It must not be forgotten that the one great qualification for engaging in this work is a clear consciousness of our own acceptance with God. Thus we have it in David, ‘Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation, and uphold me with Thy free spirit. Then will I teach transgressors Thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto Thee.’ But more particularly the conversion of the sinner implies—

( a) A change in the understanding;

( b) A change in the affections;

( c) A change in the will;

( d) A change in the life.

It is not mending, not reformation, but regeneration men need. And Scriptural conversion is being ‘created anew in Christ Jesus.’

II. The means by which this may be accomplished.

( a) The force of exhortation.—The power of speech is wonderful. The man who addresses men attacks at once the eye, the ear, the memory, the understanding, the conscience, the heart. To him, as to the lightning, all things are accessible.

( b) The management of your influence.—Every human being possesses over a certain number of his fellow-creatures an influence peculiarly his own, and for which he is responsible to God. And to every earnest Christian a thousand nameless opportunities will occur of saving souls from death by the right use of his influence.

( c) The power of example.—A holy life is a living, walking Bible—a ‘living epistle read and known of all men.’ If you live consistently and die triumphantly others will take knowledge of you that you have been with Jesus, and may be constrained to follow your example.

( d) The importunity of prayer.—It is probable that this was the principal thought in the mind of St. James when he penned these words. And here is a most powerful instrument of good always within your reach. Time would fail to tell the wonders prayer has wrought.

III. The motives presented in the text for engaging in this great work.—‘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.’ The work is Divine, the instrumentality is human. He ‘converts’ the soul only as the instrument which the Holy Ghost employs. He ‘hides the sins’ only as leading the sinner to Christ, ‘the Lamb of God Which taketh away the sins of the world.’ He ‘saves the soul from death’ only as securing his acceptance of ‘the gospel of Christ,’ which alone ‘is the power of God unto salvation.’

( a) Much evil shall be removed.—‘He shall hide a multitude of sins.’ The word rendered ‘hide’ has a twofold meaning, viz. to withdraw from sight and to withhold from sight—to hide by covering and to hide by prevention. Think what sins are withdrawn from sight, blotted out so that Divine justice sees them no more, when any sinner is converted.

( b) Much good shall be conferred.—‘He shall save a soul from death.’ Think of a human soul. Think of the Divinity of its origin, the price of its redemption, its eternal duration, the extent of its powers, and capability of pleasure or pain even in this world, and above all think of its everlasting growth—the power of endless progressive life within it!

( c) Much joy shall be imparted.—‘Let him know’ for his comfort, his joy, his present and future bliss. Living, praying, giving, working for souls, itself gives great pleasure. But when the effort is crowned with success the pleasure is unspeakable; a pleasure such as only they who enjoy it know. Every soul you are instrumental in saving is a new spring of joy to you for ever. ‘For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ at His coming? For ye are our glory and joy’ ( 1 Thessalonians 2:19-20).

Illustrations

(1) ‘The Rev. Rowland Hill once introduced Dr. Jenner, the discoverer of vaccination, to a nobleman in these terms: “Allow me to present to your lordship my friend, Dr. Jenner, who has lately been the means of saving more lives than any other man.” Dr. Jenner bowed, and said with great earnestness, “Ah! would, like you, I could say souls!” ’

(2) “ ‘If one convert him.” There is here a distinct recognition of the influence of mind over mind, that principle of dependence and of oversight which is involved in our mutual relationship as members of one family. Not the least of the endowments which make up our solemn stewardship is this mysterious and inseparable power of influence, one of the most important talents entrusted to us, and of which we shall have to give account at the judgment-seat of God. It is of universal bestowment; we are none of us without it. Your sphere is narrow, you say; your influence is small; you can do nothing for Christ. One acorn is a very insignificant thing, but the majestic oak is its development of strength; one little rippling wavelet makes no account, but it is carried to the springtide, and the springtide were not perfect without it; one raindrop is hardly noticed as it falls, but it is enough for one rosebud’s life to make it blow. There is not one of you, however small and scanty and narrow your influence, who may not, by patient and prayerful toil, become a wise winner of souls.’