Godly patience and endurances part 1

Well, the roads were kind of empty today. Yeah. I imagine that's because what time did that game go till? After 12. Wow. So everyone's sleeping. Okay, so we are in James chapter 5 verses 7 through 11. Part 1, but this might be only, we'll see, it might be part 1 of 1 or it could be part 1 of 2. James 5, 7 through 11, reading from verse 7.

Therefore, be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it until it gets the early and the late rains. You too be patient. Strengthen your hearts where the coming of the Lord is near. Do not complain, brethren, against one another so that you to yourselves may not be judged. Behold, the judge is standing right at the door.

And as an example, brethren, of suffering and patience, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. We count those blessed and who endured. You have heard of the endurance of Job and seen the outcome of the Lord's dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and is merciful. Okay, those are our verses for today.

It was supposed to be a two-part series, but it might be only a one-part series. We'll see. And I just have this postscript from last week's lesson on our second law of thermodynamics discussion about rusting and fading and the flesh fading like flowers.

Well, this guy, Ludwig Boltzmann, on his grave stone. He has this formula for entropy, right? And he, I guess he's the guy who developed what K is, the constant. That was his contribution. And they put it on his grave stone. But it's interesting that isn't that death is the ultimate result of entropy, like going from a higher state to a lower state, going to chaos and like in Genesis 2 17 dying you shall surely die and this I don't think he had it put on I think his relatives survive surviving relatives had this formula put on but isn't it so true you put that on your gravestone and it is it's truth and so yeah so there you go about entropy So verse 7 here, therefore be patient until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it until it gets the early and late rains. So first we have to cover therefore. Why is it therefore therefore?

That's pretty good. Has everyone, or did I steal that joke from someone? Hopefully, people will know him. Yeah, yeah. We always talk about that, but I modified it a bit there. Go ahead. J. Vernon McGee. I think that's right. Oh, it's J. Vernon McGee. And I know Bob uses it a lot. Yeah, I think J. Vernon McGee, that's the first one I thought. Okay. Let's get due credit now, please. Yeah, I should have put in the the reference to him there. So let's review, though, before we get started on the verse 5, 1 through 6.

And so we had these very wealthy landowners last week with lots of money, but they were hiring laborers and then not paying them for completed work. And that's the violation of God's law. And not only that, that it's God's mind and his heart is, you know, pay, pay labors. Here's the law though, from Deuteronomy chapter 24, you shall not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy. You shall give him his wages on this day before the sunset, for he is poor and his heart is set on it so that he will not cry against you. to the Lord, and it becomes sin to you. So yeah, don't wait two weeks to pay him. That'd be nice to get paid every day.

So James's former congregants in Jerusalem, who had scattered, were in turmoil. They were troubled. They were suffering under trial. And that's how we begin James. James 1 to consider it all joy when we encounter bearer spells. that the trials produces endurance right and that's what we're talking about today still so he's on that he's very consistent James with his themes here this is our main theme maybe the main theme of the whole the book so this being therefore be patient being patient is this will be reviewed for some of you who are Wednesday nights Bible study because I brought this up because I just thought about that during that Bible study, but being patient. Patience is macro-thumeo, and it's a command, so it's an active imperative. It's an aorist tense. It's be patient. And we are to live in a state of patience as a fact of life when we encounter these trials.

So macro means long, you know, long. And then thumos is passion or anger or heat. So be long heat, long heated. And so and I think Merriman would bring this out. It means to have a long fuse, light the fuse, make sure that fuse is long and it takes a long time, just like those Wile E. Coyote cartoons. He would light a fuse and then they would do all this stuff and the fuse would be going and going and all this action would and then he'd forget he lit a fuse a couple minutes ago. Yeah, he always got caught in an explosion. So have that long fuse.

And the real The real meaning is to do not engage in revenge or before you do have a long fuse about it, because the Lord will take care of the vengeance. So long suffering is the main part there. So be long, long suffering brethren until the coming of the Lord. Now the coming of the Lord is parousia and it's That way, in all these couple verses, the coming of the Lord, that is to be near, to be alongside, and it's the presence, it's not only the coming of someone, like they get on a wagon train and they come to your town, the coming of that person, but it's their continued presence of that person physically, is the idea of parousia. So we know that that is referencing the rapture and the initial arrival is the rapture, the coming of Christ in the clouds for us. Today there will be no rapture, unfortunately, because that's biblical. I think we have that rule here at Holly Hills House. No clouds, no rapture. No clouds, no rapture. Yeah, that's really neat that when there's no cloud in the sky. So you can You have one more day to get your stuff in order before the rapture happens, right?

Parousia is that word. He remains with us, so his continued presence is the parousia, is the idea there. And not only are we to be patient about his being raptured or Christ's coming, we are So there's two patiences in this verse. You see them, therefore be patient. And then later on, being patient about it.

So there's another command about it, and that's an aorist imperative. That's one. And then the other one, let's see, repeats. Oh, and the other one that's repeated is a present active participle. So present tense. So go on being patient about it. So twice in one verse. Could you say, Andrew, that we think about that.

We have Christ's patience, right? And we are to, by faith, live that out. So maybe that's, I was trying to figure out why is one Aorist? Yeah, it's interesting why one is Aorist. It's a fact that we have as patients. Yeah. We have the fruits of the spirit. And I read that Aorist is like a state of being, just live in that surrounding of being patient. But in that if you struggle in the moment, you have to remember to be being patient in the moment too. And that's fruit of the Spirit, not from Galatians 5.

So these believers, and this is Gerald B. Stanton, and I think Roy turned me on to this book, Gerald B. Stanton, Kept from the Hour. He says these believers, all through the first century, Peter's flock and Paul's flock, And James Flock knew that this Parisia was coming soon, that Christ was going to return soon without any delay. So they were being impatient about it. So that's why he gives them this command to be patient about it, because these believers want Christ to stick it to the rich men, right, from verse one in chapter five, who are oppressing them, because they knew that he would take care and of that situation for them. Now they were impatient about it. So he's reminding them to be patient for Christ's return. Patient like a farmer, in this verse it says, who waits for the precious produce of the soil. He puts his seed in the ground for the season and then he has to wait for the fall harvest.

Is that when they I'm not a farmer. In the fall, right? It's when they harvest, which is coming up, isn't it? I think we're here. Yeah. And so I could see that being an anxious situation because you don't know what's, you have your seed in the ground. You don't know what's going to happen, if there could be a disaster or a drought. And so you're uptight about it. It's an anxious kind of season.

So Israel, where we are here in this letter, James is there, and these believers who scattered from Israel probably went up north due to persecution from the Romans. Israel has two seasons, October through May, and the second season is May through September. So the first period's rains come in late October and early November. is when the early rains come and the late precipitation is in the late March, early April season when the crops are maturing.

But isn't that the... Did I get that backwards? So would they be maturing in the spring or would they just be put in the ground? That looks right. Is it? Okay. It's kind of reverse months to our season here. They're planting in the fall months and harvesting in the spring. Oh, right. Because they're in a different, yeah, okay. So that makes sense. But here it's the opposite, right? We harvest in the fall. But so the point is, there's two seasons and two rains. Yeah. Two rains, an early and a late rain.

And so we're to be patient like the farmer and to wait to that. So verse eight, you too be patient, strengthen your hearts for the coming of the Lord is near. So I say, be like the farmer and wait for the return of the Lord. And these scattered believers are going to know a farmer or they've done this when they were down in Jerusalem. They're going to be very familiar with the crop season that he's referencing.

Referencing Deuteronomy 11, 20 through, that should be not 12, I'll fix that, 20 through maybe 22? I think, yeah, I think I'd say 11, 20 through 22 there. So in Deuteronomy it says, and I'm paraphrasing this, the promised land, God says, is not like, he's telling the Israelites this, is not like what you knew in Egypt where you had a basically a vegetable garden that you could water by foot. I take that to mean you could walk the length of it and water it yourself. The land which I'm sending you that you're going to is a land of hills and valleys and drinks water from the rain of heaven and God's care is always on it from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. So that's in this verse 7 and 8, that's what James is sort of referencing, and these Jewish believers, they knew what it said there in Deuteronomy.

They're very familiar with it. The parousia is near, so it's imminent. It's overhanging, or it hangs suspended on the world today and the world back then, and they knew that And we should know that now, although we probably often forget that. The prophetic calendar is clear for Christ's arrival. Nothing needs to happen. It doesn't mean that's going to happen immediately, but nothing prevents it from happening. So the coming of Christ in the clouds is overhanging.

I like that, hangs suspended. in the mountains. I see that all the time when the snow shed gets really high on the roofs and then it melts a little, then it goes over the eaves and then it hangs suspended over the eave of the house and it even curls up on itself and turns to ice on the inside. And you know that, and they have signs, you know, like don't walk here because that snow shed is going to shed at any moment. And I think some people, I don't know if I've done this right, tell you, some people, a guy got hurt or killed when that snow fell on him. Really? Yeah. And in their three story buildings sometimes. So it's very dangerous. So I like that snow, um, example for that overhanging or hanging suspended.

So, even though there's no clouds today, the rapture is still overhanging and even though there's no snow. You know, I was going to say, Andrew, I think it's an interesting picture to use of a crop maturing because, I mean, if you're familiar with planting crops, I mean, once it's in the ground, once it's growing, I mean, harvest is inevitable. It's coming. None of the farmers know exactly when it's going to be ripe to start combining, but I mean, it will come.

It's that certain. Right. And you don't know the quality of it, what it will be, right? And that causes, am I right in saying that, Miles? Yeah, the guys up here this year were really surprised by their yields. Yeah. Sometimes it's good. and sometimes not so good.

So, Paul and John would refer to the parousia as the Lord is near, or it is the last hour, Peter, or John says that in 1 John 2. And the Lord is near is Philippians, from Philippians chapter 4. And Peter has a word for it, too. I didn't write that in today's lesson. And that, again, is from Gerald Stanton, Kept from the Hour, that overhanging comment. So good little book. So on to verse 9.

Do not complain, brethren, against one another, so that You yourselves may not be judged. Behold, the judge is standing right at the door. So with this coming of the Lord being imminent, it's a reason to behaviorally be in line with his coming. He's right at the door.

This word for complain. when I was looking at it, it's not what I expected. What you we usually think of it is to when you complain about something, you express feelings of pain, or you voice your discontent or your dissatisfaction. Isn't that what complaining is voicing your dissatisfaction? And then even you bring an accusation against someone.

You know, I think of human, you go to human resources, right? Playing about a co-worker, that's a complaint. So that's in my mind, but this, this word is stenazzo, which is more, it would be in the Greek, it'd be maybe better to say, do not sigh or groan or have a grudge against a brother.

And it's a present active command. And it's, I thought it was like Charlie Brown, you know, right? Saying, Oh, good grief. That's what he always said. And you roll his eyes. Oh, good grief. That, I think, hits it, what the stenozzo is, this type of complaining. And even more, there's an element of a gentle fault finding with this stenozzo. So it's a gentle judgment. Yet, we are not to be judged like that, even sigh about things, which is really, it's hard not to do that, right? Not to say or roll your eyes or, because judge not, lest you be judged.

I think of when, yeah, in baseball, when, especially little league, but sometimes in my, like my son's division one league, throw to first, And then it's thrown high, and the first baseman can't get it, and it's overthrown. And then all the bases start running, and it's like, oh, good grief, is the exact, I think that's stanazzo. And you groan about it. you don't make a complaint or, well, you would make a dissatisfaction about it.

Some parents are really both about those things. And even professional baseball, right? Well, they get a lot more violent than that. How do you do that? Macaulay says it's more of an inner groan, or more so than an outward complaint. And express bitterness at the thought. So, yeah, if you have that, you're going to get, you're going to keep it here and you're going to get an ulcer, right? Yeah. About groaning or inner dissatisfaction with, with your brother. Yep.

Andrew, before you go on, did you pick up on the, I think, W.E.A.S.T. renders that do not there as stop? Oh, stop. So if I understand, and maybe Roy can correct me, it's The action is already going on. They're already complaining. And so he's saying, yeah, I mean, do not is kind of mild. Stop is you're already doing it. Stop it. So I think that's correct. Yeah. Stop complaining. And that's all within the do not. I think so. That makes sense, too. Right.

So these believers were up there and they were being persecuted. And James got wind that they were voice or just all up in grief about their situation up there. So yeah, that would stop, stop complaining. And stop, even it's an inward thing, which is really hard, right? Inward sins, which are that you don't voice, but you keep inside of you. That's, yeah, that takes some, a lot of spiritual maturity.

So point two of verse nine, the judge is standing right at the door. And I'm punting on this one. I'm leaving the interpretation up for a little discussion if you want to chime in. But I think we'll look at it, we'll explore it a little. So the first question I came up with is from Revelation here, Revelation 3.20.

Christ says behold I stand at the door and knock if anyone hears my voice and opens the door I will come into him and I will dine with him and he with me or sup with him And I took that to mean He'll come into your heart, but these are he's talking that laid to see in believers, right? So it's directed towards believers and I don't think I I don't think James is referred... First, that's way in the future that Christ says this, probably 50 or 60 years into the future in Revelation. He gives that to John about the seven churches. And we're way before that. We're James now, you know, 50, 60 years prior.

So unless the Holy Spirit gave him that knowledge of this, the judge is standing right at the door and they, so they, you can connect them, right? And I, at first I was connecting them, but now I, I don't think so. I think it's Christ is about to open the door of judgment, his day of the Lord program. It's interesting. I, I have a little footnote that it's actually plural. It's doors. Oh, okay. I mean, I'm not sure what that means at the moment, but I just, so it's plural. According to this footnote I have. Don't you think too that this relates maybe to what you covered back in chapter four?

Not judging your brother. I mean, the ultimate judge is the Lord Jesus Christ. And this does not necessarily have to relate temporally to, you know, right now or in the near future or the distant future. It just says, you know, we're going to be careful not to be judging one another.

Yeah. Exactly. If you look back in chapter 4, that's what you'll see, around, what is it, verse 11-ish or so? Yeah, that's right, Roy. Verse 11, I think, yeah. And do you read that, Roy? Do not speak against one another, brethren. He who speaks against a brother or judges the brother speaks against the law, judges the law. And it goes on to say in verse 12, there is only one lawgiver and judge, the one who's able to save and destroy.

So why are you doing it, right? Right, right. But in this verse 9 here of chapter 5, would it, and I'm seeing that as that judgment that you just referenced, there's nothing it could he could do that imminently, right? Right. And it's actually don't grumble against each other. Don't grumble against each other, which is the same kind of a picture. And other believers. Right. Right. So, so that has sense. And that was chapter four, verse 11. Yeah, it goes on to what, verse 12-ish?

You think that perhaps, like the phrase in verse 8 about the coming of the Lord is near. It's almost one of those mental, it gets our mind thinking about the future coming of the Lord. And then we get down to in verse 9 and we think, oh, the judge is standing right at the door. He's talking about the future coming of the Lord. But that's actually not what he's talking about, because when the Lord comes, he doesn't come as our judge, right?

You've got it. for believers. That's true, yeah. But right now, he is in a process of judging in terms of, you know, he's got discipline for us as believers. There is judgment of what we're doing, what we're not doing, and he's working that out so that when he comes, he doesn't come as our judge. But that's really, that's quite, that's fascinating, Andrew.

Yeah, Miles, to some extent, too, what Andrew shared in terms of in terms of the grumbling and that kind of expression of this term in verse 9, you're really looking at that as something that is judging your brother when you're grumbling about something, right? It's a more subtle form and it may not be expressed, but in a sense it's the same way. I mean, it's only the new life we have in Christ Jesus that allows us to be free of this grumbling. right? So the Holy Spirit's in the business of constantly reminding us of this new life we're to live in by faith and not let the old man show up and grumble and judge.

And the patience here in view is we are quite often judged not just by the world as being, you're insane, you believe that? But also by believers. And believer to believer criticize one another. And we suffer under that, just like Job did from his friends, David, you know, and many others, and Moses too.

Yeah. Well, that was a good discussion. That's great. That's good. That's good. And yeah, I was thinking about this. He is, when we're raptured, And I recycled this again, which we often do here at Holly Hills, but this, this timeline, the judgment, but he could be, we are judged at the BEMA seat, but it's not for sin and it's not for, it's rewards.

So, but maybe he's saying you're judged loss of rewards. Um, because you're, you know, you don't obviously get rewarded for grumbling or complaining. And so you're going to suffer if you persevere through and not, you could get rewarded for not, you know, you know what I'm saying? Does that make sense? Um, but it's just a thought, but he is during the program. He's going to judge. He's going to judge the unbelieving living at the end of the tribulation period there. So, you know, James could be talking about that judgment. It's tough because Paul is the one who brought about the theme of seat judgment, right?

Well, Andrew, back to the plural doors, it makes me think it's not just one. If it's only one door, then that kind of focuses on one event. But if it's doors, plural, I think it is. His judgment program. Yeah, so this goes along with what Bob and Gloria are saying. Yeah, this is good. So there's the Bema Seat Judgment or Bema Seat Rewards. There's the Sheep and the Goats Judgment. What else is in there? There's the Great White Throne Judgment. So this whole judgment program is coming.

So now my... I opened it up for discussion and now my My chart or my picture is going to be wrong, maybe, because I say, you are here. And we are. There's my door. But it's just one door. It's only one door. I don't know. So this is how I read it, that the door to the whole Day of the Lord program is right imminent, and the judge is right there at the door. So, but, after the discussion, you know, that's good stuff. So, who knows. So, just a little side to that.

Here's a picture of William Holman Hunt, and this is his depiction of Revelation 3.20, Behold, I stand at the door and knock. Bye. And J. Verne McGee brought this picture up, so I looked it up. So, I don't know why he brought it up, but there you go. There's that famous, I guess it's a famous picture of Christ standing at the door, knocking.

And you'll notice that on the door, so that now we're inside, we're chasing a rabbit trail. Yeah, but you can see that the weeds are growing up over the door, and then there's no handle on the door. And the artist said, well, this man's heart is, or woman's heart is closed and hasn't been opened in a long time. And she can only open it from the inside, right? The handle is on the inside. So Christ has to, well, there you go. Christ has to knock. And that's the depiction of that Laodicea's heart there. Neither lukewarm, they're lukewarm, neither hot or cold.

So again, from Gerald B. Stanton, which I'm using a lot today, from The Coming of the Lord is a Reason to Live with Purifying Hope from Titus 2, 13 and 14. It's a reason to live sensibly, righteously, and godly. Again, from the same section of verses.

Coming of the Lord is a reason to live soberly from 1 Peter, chapter 1, 13. Coming of the Lord is a reason to live patiently, and that's our verse from today, with sincerity, in purity, and in brotherly love and holiness, 1 Thessalonians 3, 12 through 13. There's a really nice quote here from James Brooks in Maranatha, which is, I think it says, the Lord is coming is what that means. And he says, if we heartedly and practically believe that the Lord may come for his people at any moment, it must separate from the world and kill selfishness and blast the roots of personal ambition and increase brotherly love and intensify zeal and deepen concern for the salvation of the lost and give comfort in affliction. and put us in the state of preparedness for the great interview, like a bride arraying herself to meet the bridegroom.

He says, oh, there's no truth in the Bible that can bring greater blessing to the soul, but is largely hindered if we are taught to expect our gathering together unto him lies beyond the appalling tribulation that shall come upon the world. So you see what he's saying there? He's saying if If we have to go through the tribulation, and this is the whole reason for the Stanton book, arguing against being a mid-tripper or a post-tribulation Christian. If we have to go through the tribulation, you're going to know when that is, because you're going to be on earth, and the Antichrist is, and you're going to know.

So it changes your whole That's what he's saying. It's and it's a hope and it's a comfort. But a lot of commentators is what the Stanton guy says, he says, they say, there's a lot of biblical scholars who think that we are go through the tribulation. And that when we say it's a comfort that we don't, they saying, well, you're, you're You're all about comfort and it's not going to be comfort. You got to, you got to buck up and you got to go through the tribulation.

Come on, soldier. And we're saying, oh, we're not going to, we're very comforted. And he's saying that that's kind of the easy way out. It's interesting, because I was reading that. So it's quote there. Okay, so 10 and 11. Oh, and if I don't get through this, we can continue next week.

But 1011 is, as an example, brethren, of suffering and patience. Take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. We count those blessed who endured and have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the Lord's dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and merciful. So we looked at Makarothumea, besides being patient.

He has the ability to suffer, which is kakopatia. It's a different word for suffering than paschko. Paschko is used a lot, and it has the feeling of ill or being vexed or a state of passion or just being in pain. It's a bad plight, is paschko. But this is kakos, which is evil harm. injurious or being ill.

And pathia or pathos is whatever befalls one. It's a calamity or mishap. So you put those together. And is not this a perfect definition of what Job went through? He went through a cacopathia, this evil calamity, evil mishap. So James is perfectly clear with that.

He not only says to the ability to suffer, but then add to that, we should have endurance. And I'm going through this, I'm like, how do we do all this? And Bob would say, well, we have the life, you need to have the life of Christ. And what we're studying in Romans is certainly the key to that is to be dead. to these, to be dead to the sin of complaining or, or impatience.

That's all old man stuff. So the idea of endurance, that's hupo meno, and we know what that is, that's living under or abiding under the pain, the illness, the plight, the mishap and calamity. Hupo is under, meno is abiding, So, live under that is what James is referencing Job about here. Job, I don't know if this is a word. I can't know these. I'll just make up a word. Hubomenoed. He hubomenoed his calamity.

And I was reading, it could have been, I thought it was like a week, maybe two, three, but they were saying this could have been two years or 20 years or 40 years that Job did this. Because he lived to 140, so you don't know when he went through his sufferings. So here's his sufferings, Job. He lost seven sons and three daughters, lost 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camel, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 female donkeys, loss of a great number of servants, He was smitten with sore boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head.

And I just took this verbatim from from Job chapter one, the loss of support of his wife, right? She didn't. It was more than the support. Yeah, yeah. And a few unkind words, unkind words. Yeah. But I'm like, my wife. I've suffered this like every week with my wife. Anyway, loss of support from his wife, loss of support from his friends. And I added in there, I don't know if I have it, loss, he was a city elder. And so they all abandoned him too. So he lost his standing in, yeah, with the city. and his colleagues there.

So through all this, Job did not sin, nor did he blame God. This is what God says in Job 1.22. Just a point of interest between Job's use of wealth. As you remember from last week, we had the rich man from 5.1. James's rich man hoarded wealth and he oppressed the poor, but Job was exceedingly wealthy.

But we learn in Job 29 that he delivered the poor and the orphan. He came to the aid of the dying and the widow. He was a father to the needy and he rescued the legally oppressed. He would break the laws, he would break the jaws of the wicked and he'd rescue the poor from the jaws of the wicked. So he treated, he handled his wealth very well. The exact opposite of our rich man in James chapter five and verse one.

God himself recognized Job as a moral excellent man from Job 1.8 and 2.3. So he got the endorsement from God himself. At the end of his testing, the Lord was compassionate and merciful. He restored and doubled. Job's wealth in Job chapter 42. And it says that God blessed him more in his latter days than in his earlier days. So God certainly did what James says in verse 11. He blessed Job who endured under his implausible plight and he was compassionate and merciful.

And that's where we'll end there. So I got through all of 11, but it was sort of quick through 11. So we'll see. We'll talk about it. Yeah. Okay. So we'll wrap it up. Prayer, anyone? Roger, would you? Sure, sure. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for our time today, Lord. We thank you for the blessings we have on our Savior. Thank you for your word, Father, just for your marvelous word that shows us who you are and who we are too, Lord. We thank you for the blessings of that. In Christ's name. Amen.