Books of James & Jude - Suffering and prayer Part 1 - James 5:13-18

All right, good. So this is a two part series. Roger, who's teaching next week? Jim is Jim. OK. We don't like to split sections, but ultimately. Yeah. Ultimately, we do that because of schedules. And Roger's schedule is particularly difficult. And so we just teasing. I've got a tremendous amount of travel this fall. And so you're going to see me a lot in December because everybody else is gone. I'm not going anywhere at Christmas time. So James, we got four teachers in this class. So we alternate Sundays.

Alright, so let's read, let's begin with verse 10 in James 5. We're going to read down to the end of the chapter, but today I'm going to be covering the first three verses of this 6th verse section, and it's really interesting because the first three kind of stand alone, not entirely, but the second three, I mean, they kind of partition nicely halfway through this section. So, Al, how are you doing? Can you read James 5, 10 through 20, I believe? Okay, the whole thing. Well, 5, 10 through 20. Are you up to this? Yes. Okay, good.

Brothers, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. As you know, we consider blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job's perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy.

Above all, my brothers, do not swear, not by heaven or by earth or by anything else, Let your yes be yes, and your no, no, or you will be condemned. Is anyone of you in trouble? You should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. Amen. Is anyone of you sick?

You should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil, and then he will be well. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well. The Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to each other, and pray for each other, so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that he would appear. You have heard of Job's perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about.

The Lord said, My brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth, then someone should bring him back. Remember this, whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sinners. So let's begin with verse 13. The reason I start with 10, and you've had that lesson, was that Jim? No, it wasn't Jim, it was Jeremy. Okay, he had that lesson last week, but the reason we're turning there is we're going to refer back to it today, in part, in our verses of recovery. So, as any man you have afflicted, let him pray. As any married, let him sing psalms.

So, what does it mean to be afflicted? It's translated suffering in the other translation. Well, in the Greek it can mean suffer, troubles, hardness, misfortune. Affliction is just anything that's not chosen to be comfortable. These are burdens that come to you. Sometimes they're emotional, sometimes they're physical, sometimes they're spiritual. There could be any type, couldn't there? Anything that makes life uncomfortable can be considered an affliction.

I think if we think about this spiritually, is there anything that potentially can tend to separate us from God because we live in a human body and the flesh responds in its own capacity to these things. We know throughout scripture Particularly in the New Testament, these ease of afflictions, trials, and tribulations are there for a purpose.

So I think, you know, Day really does reflect a little bit back on what Job had experienced. Why don't we identify with Job? When you're suffering, you're going through trials, do you think of, gee, Job? No. You think of the Lord Jesus Christ. I mean, if you have trials, then you go, gosh, you know, what he experienced. Well, Job lived by faith, didn't he?

He did. I mean, at times he got distracted a little bit, but I mean, Job lived by faith, so we can identify with that, but we have a much greater power in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He wasn't aware of the Holy Spirit's working. No, he wasn't. And the question is, one question I forgot when I get there is, how did these people in the Old Testament live by faith? I mean, the principle's the same, right? They lived by faith. The joke lived by faith. But it's not that they were they were at that, you know, they didn't have the full story that they were looking forward to the redemption was in view, but they didn't have all the information that we have.

And where do you put Job time-wise? Do you put it before? Is Job early? Do you think it's before Moses, clearly? More Genesis kind of stuff, right? Maybe before Abraham, even. So Abraham, he was counted righteous by his faith, and so Job is kind of in the same category, I think, in my mind, as Abraham.

He was before the law. He had a sense that God was faithful, that God was constant, that God was righteous, because of all his argument about, let's have a trial here and judge me, and let's meet face to face, and let's go over the evidence, and though he slay me yet will I trust him, and things like that. But you know, from the garden on, the principle is do we believe God for what he's revealed, right? I mean, you know, Adam and Eve, God had revealed a certain truth. And did they believe him or didn't they? And they fell short because they didn't believe him totally for what he was saying.

So the principle is the same from, you know, Adam and Eve through Job, through Abraham, through Moses, all the way down the line. So the principle of faith is one there for us equally as much. However, as believers, we're indwelled by the Holy Spirit who energizes and activates the new man in Christ Jesus we each have. Whereas Job didn't have that, Abraham didn't have that, they just believed God for what he revealed. The principles, go ahead.

I don't even have the scriptures either. No, I know. It's amazing, their faith is pretty amazing. Well it is, and again, when I reach the kingdom, well it's a bad term, when I get to heavenly places, I'm going to ask the Lord, how did men respond by faith any differently than they do today? And I'm not sure they did any differently, they just believed what they'd heard and what was revealed. Okay, enough about Job.

Why is this in the active tense rather than the passive tense? Is anything among you afflicted? Afflicted active tense. Is afflicted is in the active tense. Any thoughts on that? Well, we've commented before that James was written at a time when this was all new. Grace was a new thing and people were wondering should they stay in the synagogue, should they get out. If they met separately, they were being criticized, persecuted, they were troubled, they were afflicted, or not following the old way, the old tradition. That could be, Al. You know, I think, I didn't think of it quite that way, but being in the active tents, I mean, first of all, if you read it, being afflicted, aren't we blaming something else?

I mean, I mean, did the Lord Jesus Christ blame other things in terms of the afflictions that he suffered here? I mean, in a sense, he could because he's fully God, fully man, and he couldn't respond in any way but faith. I mean, that was his nature. But us, I mean, we're part of these trials and tribulations.

Us being afflicted, this idea, this mindset of entitlement that somebody else is always at fault. It's always because of this. I mean, this maybe is the best explanation I can come up with. I mean, because we're going to deal with this whole issue of sickness, because sickness is not necessarily physical illness here. This can be spiritual weakness, and I think this plays into that a little bit.

The affliction is the sin nature, and the fact we have everything to do with the sin nature. We were born in sin, we're saved out of sin, but the sin nature is always there. And to think that everything that happens adversely is to blame somebody else. Sure, some things we don't seem to be accountable for, but nevertheless, I think the idea that we actively enter into these afflictions and trials and tribulations is a concept that we ought to keep in mind. Any other thoughts? There's other scriptures that We're not to be surprised or amazed at the fact that we do have trials.

I mean, that's part of the Christian life. This is sort of what he's saying. If you're actively being tried or suffering, that's part of the life. Welcome to the life of a believer. Exactly. And so he's just kind of saying that. He's saying that's, you know, and the response he's going to say, I'm getting ahead, but, you know, the response is prayer, right? The result. Nice leading, Roger. Let them pray. By the way, that's an imperative. Do it.

What's the story here? Pray about all things without ceasing. 1 Thessalonians, I think, wherever it is in 1 Thessalonians. And there's other places that Paul would just pray about everything, always. We're going to look at a little different aspect in here in a second. And when we pray, put this all into context. All right, we're going to look at a couple here. 2 Corinthians 12, 10. By the way, I could have taken a hundred verses here, but I took three. Therefore, I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake.

For when I am weak, then I'm strong. By the way, weakness here is no strength. I'm going to pray to God for help. What do you mean for help? I mean, the only thing God's asking for us is to pray by faith. In that way we're energizing the new man, things are put into appropriate perspective, and our weakness is no human strength. That doesn't mean we fall back and become doormats, because God makes us responsible. But that prayer is by faith that these circumstances are going to be ultimately to his glory.

My two favorite verses that took me through many trials, including my wife's death at a very young age, 2 Corinthians 4.17.18. For this light affliction is but for a moment, which worketh in us a far more eternal and exceeding way to glory, why we look not at the things that are seen, but the things that are unseen, because the things that are seen are temporal. But the things that are not seen are eternal. By the way, 2 Corinthians 4 is one of the epitomes of Paul's writings. It's just a great, great chapter.

Is it a what or a who? Is it in the word tense? Is it a what thing or a who thing that afflicts us? Well, the affliction is a verb, and again, it's in the active tense. It doesn't have any indication of what the source of that affliction is. We don't. We really don't. And I think, again, the affliction can be defined in those ways and probably more. It's misfortune, sufferings, hard times. Anyway, it's all of the above. So I don't think it's specific here.

Welcome to the human existence. I went to the Old Testament. The Old Testament has lots of verses about when there's trials calling God. David frequently went there, didn't he? And this verse is very simple. And calling me in the day of trouble, I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorify me. And I think that's the bottom line. How we carry ourselves by faith through trials is what the world sees. And as Hal used to say, Margaret reminds me all the time, you may be the only Bible people ever see.

And by the way, I contend that sometimes the world deals with afflictions better than we as a body of Christ. And I think that deals with a lot of issues, personalities and the old man and milk drinkers rather than me. But I don't know, you know, sometimes we're not a very good witness here. But this isn't trying harder in the flesh to get through the afflictions. It's really living by faith that the Lord has in there for the purpose. Any additional thoughts about that? Today's none but the hungry heart.

Talk about humility. But the idea there was as long as you're trying to do it on yourself, I used to have trouble with humility, but now I'm the most humble guy I know. I've really done a great job of working on humility. When I realized that in my flesh dwells no good thing, as Paul puts it.

See, Al's putting you on the spot. Have you read None But the Hungry Heart yet this morning? All right, good. I'm glad that humility's working out in you, Al. This is just great. Alright. Is anyone here married? You better be. Be of good cheer. Literally, to have the mind well is the way it's literally translated. I certainly hope so. One of the things about looking at scripture through the eyes of God's great grace is you've got to be lifted up by that. There's a rest there. There's a peace. There's an energy. There's a joy. Humility is part of that because God's great grace reaches out to us so undeservingly.

When you're aware of God working in you and through you, you can have peace and rest. Whereas when you're doing it on your own, you're constantly stressed out. Doing it well enough. Well, the affliction, what it does, I've got to work harder at getting through this affliction.

No, that's not the answer. The answer is to take a step back and, Lord, you're allowing this. Grow me through your great grace through this experience. By faith that you're there to reflect who you are in heavenly places. So, be of good cheer. Happy. We should be.

You know, that's the thing about rightly dividing the word of truth, I think. Because we come to Holly Hills because we view Grace is the foundation by which we walk by faith. That means the harder you work to please God with some set of legal principles, the more you're going to fall short, because the law just doesn't make it. The law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, and then we live victoriously.

So we're all cheerful. You can't be anything but cheerful, in fact, if the Holy Spirit is working through the new man, knowing that everything that crosses our paths is to glorify God. Isn't that great? The pressure is off. All right, so what's the response?

Let him sing psalms is also an imperative. Now, I don't want people to start singing. Maybe Ingrid can. I don't know about anybody else around here. James, maybe you. But we're ultimately not going to ask you to sing. Sing in your heart, please, but not out loud.

This term in the Greek literally is to pluck off. So it actually implies a stringed instrument of some sort. And so this singing in psalms could be done by voice or instrument. So I thought that was kind of neat. Singing, we all think it's vocal, but singing could be through instrumentation, like your flute. Thank you. Isn't that string though? I was thinking about that. Well, in a sense, we'll let Al describe this more. It's these cycles. Auditory cycles are like plucking a string. You're creating a vibration. It's perceived.

Alright, and after the shipwreck they were all encouraged. We don't have to look at those verses. Remember, despite the affliction, they encouraged, actually it's the same Greek verb, kind of singing out. Paul exemplified that. How about he and Silas, who as prisoners turned affliction into merriment. They sang songs and hymns in jail despite their affliction.

In a sense we are taking the verse which deals both with afflictions and being married and transitioning one to the other. I think even through afflictions you can develop a period of an understanding that ultimately you can be merry and cheerful about these situations. Onward. Any other thoughts about verse 13? Afflictions or being merry?

Again, remember, sing in your heart and mind only. has a wider meaning. But that's what the Psalms, the book of Psalms is. It's a book of songs. And I would think that Paul and Silas weren't singing little 7-11 choruses. A lot of what's called praise songs are 7 words repeated 11 times. So I call them 7-11 songs. Anyway, they were probably singing God's Word.

So sort of back to your idea that recognizing who God is, is the source of our good attitude, our merriment. It isn't just because circumstances warrant it, it's because our God warrants it. And, you know, as I reflected in that one Psalm 55, I think, from David, saying to glorify Him, right? God's going to deliver him.

And I think we could get into great conversation in detail. I mean, remember, Israel has a view of the Lord in terms of the earth. So David being delivered, I think, was kingdom-based, meaning the kingdom of Israel on the earth as it currently existed and maybe where it was going, where our prayer is not anything to do with the kingdom.

I mean, we're not earthly bound. We're heavenly citizens. So glorifying God in us is bringing glory to him through our ultimate relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ at the right hand of God. We're heavenly citizens. Earth is not our future. Remember. Earth is our business address. It's not our home. All right, good. Verse 14.

Is any sick among you? I had fun with this as a physician here. Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church. Roger, you're on the spot here. And let them pray over him, anointing him with the oil in the name of the Lord. Boy, I'll tell you, this verse has been taken to all extremes from one very end of the spectrum. Let's look at it more carefully.

Define sickness. And you're going to think physical, aren't you? No, I was actually thinking spiritual. Well, I think it could be both, but I think you need to think about this both ways. Because the term in the Greek, astinio, means feeble, weak, without strength, or it can be physical illness. So it can mean all of the three or four things that are stated there. In context, this could be spiritual or physical.

Okay, so the sickness is... I think the elders are often called as much for spiritual sickness as they are right for physical sickness. Sometimes they're together. I mean, they're divine. Which do you think fits best here? And I think maybe we've answered that already. I think it could be either, right? I kind of have a sense that spiritual is a little bit more emphasized here than physical, but that's a matter of opinion. And it depends on the verses that follow versus those that are before.

Look at James 5.20. I'll put you on the spot. 5.20 again. You've got your glasses on.

Remember this, whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins. Okay, you're going to deal with that verse in more detail in a few weeks. But anyway, I think that relates to the spiritual. Now, moreover, it's unlikely that every physical illness is cured.

I mean, how many times have... I mean, you're praying for your mom. I mean, the point is, we hope that prayer is answered favorably for her life. But I mean, the point is, we all pray for our loved ones, you know, and they're not... The point is, God is capable, we all understand, at any time, to throw out disease in anybody.

But, you know, there's a finite lifespan. I mean, today people live into their 80s, whereas 50 years ago they lived into their 70s. I'm going to wax down a rabbit trail for a second, but people don't give credit for all that's been done in terms of preserving the quality of life to later years in science and medicine, really. The drug companies always get slammed about all the money they're making. Look, the drug companies give us medications to sustain quality of life, blood pressure control, cholesterol lowering. It's pain relief.

The point is that We're only going to live though up to a certain point. The physical illness is going to get all of us one way or the other or an accident pray tell. Hopefully not. We're all going to go through this. So every physical illness, if the elders were so great and anointing with oil was so great, there's a lot of failure going on out there, right? Not doing too well. You've got to put common sense to Scripture. James is kind of John-like in a way, black and white at times, but we really have to interpret this based on the experience around us. So every physical illness is incurred. In fact, many are not.

We're living in a world today of chronic disease models. And chronic diseases go on for decades. And they're managed, sometimes with lifestyle, sometimes lifestyle plus medications, sometimes surgically. But the point is, chronic diseases are things like diabetes, heart disease. Some forms of cancer are very indolent, go very slowly, and that's a chronic disease.

So we have to really interpret this appropriately. If it's physical, don't expect healing. By the way, we're going to get here in a second, the oil may be anything but a physical therapeutic. James 5.15, it's more physical, if we look at the next verse, but raise him up could also pertain to spiritual uplifting, raising up Romans 13.11, Ephesians 5.14, we don't have to go there. Those are examples of being risen up spiritually in terms of the atmosphere of a revival.

That could be a group or could be potentially an individual. So keep in mind here, many people like to go to these verses. In fact, a church I was part of before seemed to think there was some therapeutic value to the oil that was being put on somebody's skin when the elders showed up, and I absolutely don't believe that. If you want to listen to an interesting commentary on this, this is one of J. Vernon McGee's better commentaries on this particular section of scripture. I don't agree with J. Vernon on everything, but this is an area I think he's quite correct on. Whatever, let him call on the elders. So whether this is spiritual or physical, I mean, Mike and Vern and Roger are being called upon. This is scriptural.

And when somebody has a need, you guys show up, right? Or one of you shows up. And aorist tense, imperative move. Aorist tense means the elders are going to respond at one point in time. We don't have healing services. What's cool is it's an individual. He calls you on the phone and says, hey, would you come over and talk with me or whatever. So it's a one-on-one between the elders and this individual, which is a lot different than it's been taken to mean, let's have a bigger healing service with oil. Wait a minute.

The elders, by the way, in context could have been the appointed elders of the body, but it could have been just senior people in the church. I mean, it's possible Al, somebody would call on you. I mean, you're spiritually mature and you're capable of meeting the needs of a brother or sister in the Lord. We want to define it today in terms of appointed elders in the church and that's okay but I think at the time that the church structure may not have been adequately established at that point and they were looking at presumably men who were mature in the Lord and capable of meeting these needs.

You know I just don't think that the Lord is that focused on our physical being because what he wants us to do is to mature as believers, because this is not our home. And that's been very clear. So I don't think there's a lot of emphasis or shouldn't be on what our I mean, I don't think he's, you know, going to make it comfy over here for people because he wants them to have a great life on the earth. I don't think that's his focus. I think his focus is preparing us to be eternally with him. And that's nothing about being physical.

I mean, I think it's about our spiritual well-being. But you have to keep in mind that this could be interpreted to be physical. It could be, but I just... But this idea that, you know, that it is only physical and that anointing with oil has therapeutic value is... Right.

I just don't, I mean, I just don't think I mean, everything that we're being prepared for is not to have a cushy, great physical life or even to live a long time. It's about preparing us and our growth so that we're ready to or to be a good witness to other people that he has in mind to be with him. Well, again, back to the analogy I gave earlier, if I'd been born in 1920, I would have died at five. But because insulin had been discovered, I'm now 60 years of type 1 diabetes.

And I praise the Lord. What I'm saying is just as an example of how accomplishments have been made in science and medicine to make this physical thing treatable with human medications. So, the verse doesn't say not to call the doctor, right? I mean, there are some churches with these healings. Think of Jehovah's Witnesses, Frank. Of course, I think they're outside the main line. As far as we can tell, they're not believers. But, I mean, there's all these kind of wild and crazy ideas about medical evaluation and treatment.

Christian science, too. Christian science, another example. I think Margaret's point is well taken, because in the churches I have been in churches where at the end of every church service, the elders, quote-unquote, got up front with their little vial of oil. Oh my goodness, I know this. Physical stuff, right? Right.

And I think that's part of that milk versus meat. I agree with Margaret totally that we most readily think of what's happening to our physical selves. and not thinking in terms of what the Lord is trying to accomplish in us, what he's trying to teach us, or how he's trying to grow us.

Yeah, and remember, again, I quoted this earlier, our light affliction. Can you think about Paul saying, our light affliction? Look at that. Look at how the Lord took Paul for an example. Our light affliction. Give me a break. Paul said, be like me, 1 Corinthians 11, be like me even as I am of Christ. When you look at Paul and look at him in Christ Jesus, then you look at Paul being like him because his faith was allowing the new man in Christ to be exemplified in his life. It's not like we walk in Paul's footsteps anymore than we walk in Jesus Christ's footsteps. It's simply Paul was a man who was transformed and identified with the Lord Jesus Christ and that's the life he lived.

So he can therefore say our light affliction is but for a moment. which works for us a far more eternal and exceeding way to glory. Isn't that beautiful? Sorry, I personalize that too much. Again, perhaps this is more spiritual than physical, and that's my conclusion here. It could be both. but I think it's more spiritual than physical. And let them pray over him.

Again, aorist one point in time. That doesn't mean you can't continue. It could be aorist again another time. But this isn't a perfect verb tense in that it continues forever. I mean, your wrist, Ingrid, we'll pray for you for whatever, and you'll have to update us, but we're not going to be praying five years from now for your wrist, probably. I mean, the point is it's aorist.

The elders are going to come, meet with this individual at a point in time, And it could be future. By the way, heirs' tense is often misinterpreted as a time in the past, but it could be now, it could have been previously, or it could even be a point in the future. There's also this thing called ingressive heirs, which is points in time. It can be multiple points in time.

But it's still a single point each time, right? So that's the way this is interpreted. And the elders must do this. It's imperative. If you're going to be serving the body as an elder, you've got to be prepared 24-7, right Roger, to be available. And even though that may not be convenient, it's still what your being has to do. And how should the elders pray? God's will be done. Okay, Pat, what's God's will? People looking for God's will, it's very, very simple. It's kind of like faith, believing what God's revealed. God's will is to conform us to the image of his son. It's that simple. That way, the black Ford versus the white Chevrolet and the used car lot doesn't make any... I mean, the point is, either one's a good choice. The point is...

And they take the sickness or the suffering to do it. And that's part of the job of the elder, to explain to that person. I think our brother Hal so much, his ministry was so much of that ilk. He went to so many people, and they were suffering, and his message was consistent. God knows you're going through this difficulty. It's in God's plan, and you can trust Him. I think this fits in very well with the elders performing their duties, if we're talking about the elders of the body of believers, of telling them about Christ, and that suffering is part of the Christian life.

Alright, now the prayer could be for healing and in Acts 28.8 it says that, and it happened that the father of Publius lay sick of a fever and dysentery and Paul went into him and prayed and he laid his hands on him and healed him. Well, that's in scripture and there are other examples of healing. The Lord Jesus Christ for sure, but also among the disciples. Does God miraculously heal the day like during the apostolic age?

He can, 1 Corinthians 12.9 to another faith by the same spirit to another gifts of the healings by the same spirit we're looking at the spiritual gifts here but if we go on then says 1 Corinthians 13.10 at the end of the gifts but when that which is perfect is come then that which is in part will be done away do we have prophets today? I don't think we have prophets anymore.

Do we speak in tongues the way, you know, at the early church? What's the term? Pentecost. Do we speak in tongues? The evidence scripturally is that tongues were known languages. Like, Al, if you speak in Russian, I can speak Russian. Thank you very much. I knew that.

So anyway, a lot of these gifts, you could argue whether they've all gone away, but the point is that this miraculous healing isn't taking place anymore, I don't think. Likewise the spirit, by the way, here's another way the prayer comes out, and I was alluding to this earlier.

Romans 8.26, likewise the spirit also helps in our weaknesses. That's for each of us individually, but even the elders.

For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which can't be suffered. So this prayer sometimes is not even capably understood intellectually. Don't you have a sense sometimes that you're transmitting something to the Lord, you couldn't write it down and publish it, but the point is we're communicating constantly. I mean, I get alert all the time about stuff and it's not perfectly worded as stuff. I mean, you know, he knows our hearts, he knows our minds.

So when the elders pray, they can pray specifically for the illness, if it's physical or spiritual, but ultimately the prayer may go even beyond that, that's circumstantial. God can get glory either way. In some people, the healing happens and people glorify God and it's a witness to God's power. In other cases healing doesn't happen or afflictions don't go away and the reaction of a Christian in the proper manner is a witness to God's sustaining ability through life's disappointments, etc. And so, one of the weaknesses, I think, of people who have just been saved by faith, but have grown in faith and learned more about God, is they expect their answers to prayer to be along the line That seems positive to the rational mind.

Isn't that an earthly view? We all like security blankets and comfort zones. If we're in pain, we'd like to have no pain. There's no question about that. But God understands that. He's given us a physical body and we incur pain. There's nothing wrong to not want the pain. But the point is seeing this from a heavenly perspective about how that's going to be used to his glory, whether pain is relieved or not. And we want it to be.

Notice, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. This is kind of going to track along what you just said, Al. Anointing. In the Old Testament, anointing with oil or ointment was often a physical refreshment after washing. In the New Testament it's often applied to people with physical illness, but again we're broadening that to spiritual problems too. Or one use was for the dead body, the body of Lord Jesus Christ, Mark 16. And that, it can be oil or ointment.

It's interesting, the two phrases, anoint him with oil and in the name of the Lord. I noticed that I was looking at that. In the name of the Lord actually modifies the verb, let them pray. So it's really let them pray in the name of the Lord. Anointing with oil is kind of a separate issue. How interesting. I didn't pick it up until I started looking at that. It's let him pray in the name of the Lord.

And that makes total sense. That's how we're to pray. The fact of the anointing with oil is not you're not saying I anoint you with oil in the name of the Lord. You're saying I pray over you in the name of the Lord. And then I'll anoint you with some oil if that's a separate issue. It's not necessarily as it appears there. It looks like, well, I'm going to do the oil and that's going to be. Not that the oil wouldn't be the name of the Lord, but what it definitely is when you pray in the name of the Lord. So I think that's it. OK, good. Good. Thanks for that clarification.

So does the oil have therapeutic value or is it symbolic? I mean, I think there's nothing about, I guess, if you have dry skin, putting on oil does have some therapeutic value. But other than that, I guess there's also oils that have steroids in them sometimes that people who have itching or have other rashes, the oil does have therapeutic value applied to the rash, so it can have that. But people dying of metastatic cancer don't get any medicinal value from the oil being placed on their skin.

JFB, Jetson, Fawcett, and Brown, oil in the East, and especially among the Jews, see the Talmud, Jerusalem, and Babylon, was much used as a curative agent. It was also a sign of divine grace. Hence, it was an appropriate sign in performing miraculous cures.

So that's a quotation from a commentator. And also, oils are used in many pagan cultures. So you've got to kind of, again, put that in perspective. Notice that the elders were and are church leaders and presumably spirit-led. And so these are people that we look up to. Thus their prayers and anointing were appointed of God to be his spiritual representative. some importance related to that.

Yeah, Margaret. I was going to say, wouldn't this be, you know, kind of similar to baptism? I mean, as an analogy of, you know, in baptism we're cleansed in newness of life and all of that. And the oil, to me, is symbolic of anointing, you know, just spiritually.

No, I think so. There's a bit of tradition here too and of course it can go awry because again many pagan cultures use this same type of ceremony. But don't you think that's why? Because it was so common during that time that this is an anointing of God. This is not a pagan ceremony. This is the God, the one God and you're being anointed.

And oil was a valuable commodity back then. I mean, it was used for, you know, olive oils and all those oils were used for light. They used them for their lanterns and things. It was a real valuable commodity. It was expensive and it was real valuable. I remember the Mary Martha story and the oil too, in terms of the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ. Presumably it was not an inexpensive entity.

In fact, to what Roger was saying, in the name of the Lord, Barnes, when we do anything that tends to promote virtue, to alleviate misery, to instruct ignorance, to save life, or to prepare others for heaven, it is right to feel that we are doing it in the name of the Lord. I think Barnes states it very well. Everything we do is in the name of the Lord.

The believer is here to glorify God. And so the elders in their prayer for the sick, spiritually sick and or physically sick individual is in the name of the Lord. And here another verse that can be potentially confusing to interpret, and the prayer of faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up Let me get back here a second. We'll raise him up, and if he hath committed sins they shall be forgiven him.

Now boy, talk about spiritual. I mean, this really doesn't deal with physical as much as spiritual. Notice the prayer here, of faith. How many hollow prayers are given? I mean, I'm going to be very transparent. There's a lot of traditional kind of prayer that just doesn't make it. I don't know, this is me maybe only, we go to churches and you have to read this prayer from the bulletin, I don't know, but we're not at prayers of faith.

What's the faith? The faith is that the Lord understands the circumstances and is going to use this to conform everyone to his image. Not only the person who is spiritually or physically sick, but also the elders. You guys grow through grace when you meet with people. So we're talking about a prayer of faith, and the faith is that God sees the circumstances and is going to meet the needs.

Save is the Greek verb sozo, and it means from danger or destruction, or spiritual. It could be either. Danger or destruction could be related to the physical sickness, or it could be other circumstances. And the spiritual is from the penalty of sins, or as Al was saying just a few minutes ago, it could be making one the partaker of the Christ nature. When someone is spiritually sick, ultimately if they are unsaved, the penalty of sins is ultimately death. So a spiritually sick individual who is unsaved, we bring him to salvation and the penalty of sins is no longer going to be eternally present. But for the believer, it's ultimately making him or her partaker of the Christ nature. So the spiritual healing is in fact identification. So is this healing physical and or spiritual? And the question is, what kind of sickness is this? Is it spiritual or physical? And is physical sickness a result of committing sins?

Well, sometimes. In the Old Testament times, that was like, there's a verse I noticed that Macaulay kind of referenced, the one about the person was he You know, he came to war and he was a little healed him. And they asked the question at the beginning of the dialogue, is this the result of the sin of his parents or sin himself? And more said no, it's because it's for my glory that I'm going to heal this man. So there was a thought in the Jewish culture that if you were sick physically, maybe you committed a sin, you sin and then you got spirit, then you got sick. So physical sickness was a result of sinning. And so, since this is sort of in James, and it's that Jewish kind of mindset, it kind of makes me wonder if he wasn't thinking along that line about sickness and sinning, the combination.

When I attend an internal medicine service at the University Hospital, which I do twice a year, I often say to Margaret, over half, maybe even two-thirds of the illness I see is self-inflicted. either the results of tobacco abuse, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, sexual related medical consequences or beyond. I mean, it's amazing. But again, it's a university hospital. This isn't your standard suburban hospital.

But I mean, there are illnesses, physical illness related to sins. Tobacco, you could call a sin. It's medically sinful, whether it's spiritually sinful to smoke or not. I don't want to go there. But the point is that people's abuse of their own bodies has a lot to do with physical illness. James. You know, there's a connection between the physical and the spiritual from the partaking of the Lord's Supper, where he says those that are able to discern the Lord's body, some of you are sick and even some of you have died.

And in the context of this passage, as we look even further in, as you mentioned earlier, it goes down back to the spiritual. to say, you're not handling your affliction in the active tense being, something's happening to you, but are you being afflicted, or are you having patience through it? Are you realizing that I'm handling this in a biblical way, and if I'm not, then of course I'm beginning to suffer the physical consequences of my improper endurance. And as such, when I come to the point to say, hey I need some help here, the elder says, I'm persuaded that God would have you react to this affliction in a different way. And I believe that your handling of this can be changed and then all of a sudden you'll see your physical environment begin to change as well.

And of course if you have actively committed a sin, it'll be forgiven you if you're willing to repent and make things right. And so I think that there's a whole connection there that can be seen taking this out entirely from just a simple, I got a cold or I got to, you know, whatever else, but to say it's related to my spiritual handling of the affliction which I find myself.

James, nice tie-in. Thanks. That was really, really worthwhile. But keep in mind, there's much physical illness. Welcome to the aging human body, right? I mean, we're all deteriorating over time in one way or the other. So, I mean, There are people that do believe that every illness is because of our sin. Ultimately, sin results in death. That was the problem in the garden, is that we've now all been born into this kind of sin leads to death kind of concept.

As much research is going on in aging, and there's a lot of research going on in aging, figuring out what genes are activated during the aging process, or why genes are turned off, and all that. But I think man in his intellect may be capable of prolonging life maybe for another five to ten years, ultimately, with new medicinals that modify gene expression that relates to aging. But basically, and one thing that came up at a conference I was at about six months ago, it was an aging conference that I was speaking at, and I'm not sure why they asked me, because I don't do aging-related research, but one of the things that came up at that meeting in Washington was What is normal aging biologically versus disease? This is important because disease can be part of the aging process, but ultimately, let's say someone's disease-free. There's no cancer, no heart disease, no diabetes, no hypertension, no arthritis, no anything. What is normal aging? Nobody really knows what normal aging really is, but the Lord does.

Because he's not allowing us to live to 400 years or 900 like Methuselah. What, 967 for Methuselah? Is that what that was? Anyway, I don't want to live like that. and raise him up. These people that the elders are praying for can be raised up spiritually, as James just indicated very nicely, or they can be raised up physically. The physical raising up, I think, was pretty much apostolic age. I would never, of course, say that God can't cure somebody and raise them up.

But all these miracles people are claiming, They may be miraculous and we can't really, as humans, judge whether this is God's acting miraculously or whether this is... By the way, pancreatic cancer which kills 99% of people in a couple of years, ultimately there is an occasional survivor. And is that God's miraculous working? Or is that one out of a hundred that does live for five years with pancreas?

I mean, I can't answer that question. The more I, and Al, you experience this too, I'm sure, the more you learn scientifically, the more you don't know. I mean, effectively. And you talk about humility. Science is really... Yes, science is even the most humble people around. So I'm going to leave you with this. I was only going to say, like Margaret said earlier, getting back to that same thing, the emphasis in people's minds so often is on the physical aspect.

They're not glorifying God in the healing. They're glorifying the fact that I'm well and I'm doing these things. I don't know what's the best approach. Well the best approach is to listen to Marcus. He's got a lot of wisdom. I get it all the time. This last year since I've come here to Holly Hills, God has really impressed me with the importance of thanking him for the new day. You weren't doing that before? Is this a confession? No, I was, but not a ritual, because that can get to be stagnant, but to honestly thank him for a new day of opportunity, of blessing, of whatever he has, and asking him to provide the motivation and the energy to do whatever the day has. To think of it in a God term a long-range view instead of the short-term, oh boy, I'm having a good day. Because tomorrow I might wake up and have a bad day and then say, it's God's fault. Go back to your...

It's a nice lead-in out of our last slide, Philippians 121, for me to live as Christ. and die is gain. My conclusion of that is either way you win. As we live in the new nature empowered by the Spirit, we put things into perspective, whether it's physical or spiritual, and we grow by grace. It's an act of faith that we grow by that grace. For me to live is Christ, and that Spirit enlightened. Paul said to be with him is even greater.

That doesn't mean we have death wishes, but we need to put this into perspective in terms of what we're talking about here, in terms of being confident in this truth that what we experience here is to God's glory, and when we're out of here, we're in a better place. And earlier in James, that emphasis, what is your life? It's a vapor, a breath. And don't go saying what you're going to do tomorrow and say if the Lord wills.

So James is continuing this emphasis that yes, we're in a physical life, but the ultimate reality is spiritual and is God-driven. And since we've seen in scripture here today that the elders are commanded to pray, we're going to ask Roger to close us in prayer. Dear Father, we thank you so much, Lord, for your word. Father, thank you for just the blessings we have in being able to read your word and understand your word and your spirit to show us the truth. We thank you for our time this day. In Christ's name, amen.