Books of James & Jude - Suffering and prayer Part 2 - James 5:13-18

Okay, suffering and prayer part two. So Bob taught last week. and started this section off, and so I'll take the last three verses of the section. We'll look at the passage this morning. I'll read that, and we'll look at an outline, and we'll also talk about a review. So I found that this was a passage that really needed to have a running start from last week, since it's just so tied to the previous content. Morning. I know. Thank you for doing that. That's right.

Well, I sure have enjoyed co-teaching on this class. It's been an interesting way of approaching the teaching and kind of pick up where another fellow teacher taught last. It takes time sometimes to get familiar with where people were in the past lesson and make sure that you're understanding it. So you end up studying for previous lessons as well.

Alright, so let's read the passage this morning and then we'll step into an outline and review. Therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. Let's pick up with verse 17. So Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.

So we have a situation here that picks up with some previous verses, and like I said, Bob taught that last week. Let's just kind of get an overview. This is the outline I've been using from Macaulay. But we've talked about the being prayerful in general, and that was covered last week.

Also, in particular, so James covers abroad, you know, 3,000 foot view of prayer, and then he gets specific about it, and we'll stay specific through the first half of the first verse today. But then he moves to kind of a more persistent statement of fact and also an illustration of that fact. And so that's what we're going to be looking at today in the case of Elijah. And what was the point that James had with bringing up this story, this Old Testament prophet to drive home fervency and prayer.

So we'll look at that today. And then finally, we've got the Be Helpful. in 19 through 20. So that's where we are and where we're headed. I'm going to spend some, four slides even, reviewing the past lesson just because I had to go through it and thought it would be good to have it up here.

So, in verse 13, we talked about the problem, the problem of suffering, and the solution was prayer. And that prayer is the present active imperative, and so this is a command, that you must pray in light of the suffering. And God sends us these trials to mature us, just like he sends me technical challenges. And then he contrasts suffering with cheerfulness. And he said, is anyone cheerful, rather encouraged, the proper response is to sing praises. And one of the goals of trials that we realize God is in control and has a purpose and works all things for the good of those who love God. And so we have this situation in verse 13 where you've got a problem, solution, situation, response, right? So verse 14, he talks about, is anyone among you sick?

And the word, asthenio, which has a primary meaning of weak, being weak. And I'm not sure how Baugh, I went through all of his notes, but I think that he said, whether it's physical sickness or spiritual weakness, to live is Christ to die is gain, was his point. Either way you win, is what I saw in his slides. And that's definitely the case.

I went with the interpretation that this is very much dealing with spiritual weakness, and it may have the implication of physical weakness and fatigue. Look at all those words. Oftentimes, when you have spiritual depression, you also have physical, you know, reactions to that as well. And so I don't think that either of them are necessarily out of sync with one another, but it seems that in the light of suffering being prayer, and then cheerfulness being the solution or response being singing praises, the opposite of cheerful would be spiritual suffering and weakness. And so in light of all the things that James has been talking about in terms of spiritual weakness, I think that it fits and we'll see some more of that today. But I just came to the conclusion that this is an issue. Is anyone among you under heavy trial and being crushed by the trial such that he has fallen into a state of spiritual weakness and just is about to fully give out? fully give out.

And so, as you look at the way these words are used, I think that that fits there. And there were believers with the gift of healing, but the contact is not physical sickness. but spiritual weakness. So the spiritually strong are needed, namely the elders. And in this case, we don't have 1 Timothy, we don't have Paul and Timothy's perspective on the church in terms of its leadership. And so the word is used here, but it's used as a first case situation where we're talking about the spiritually mature. They didn't have the eldership in the church fully established yet. Yes, Al?

Word of testimony. This morning when I got up, The lack of ability to move, the pain when I did move, made me think, you know, I just need to give up my volunteer stuff and take it easy because the body is just worn out, just can't handle it. And immediately when I thought of that, I thought of my promise to God about a year ago when I started taking on the jail work. I promised God I'd thank Him for each new day and trust Him for motivation and energy to do it. And I was just strongly reminded of it this morning.

So when you speak of this, the tie-in between the physical, emotional, spiritual, we are one person, although we're made of parts and different, but it's very true that Our physical well-being and our emotional and spiritual well-being are all tied together.

And the emphasis you're putting here is Spot on. I think so. I don't often react to, in major ways, to things that we talk about in class, but why don't we just have Roger pray for you about that right now? Because that's what this passage is really all about, the spiritually mature. praying for those that are underburdened in this way. So let's just pray for each other.

I'm fine now. No, that's okay. I want to, though. That's this in action. So, as we'll see, let's do that. Here, Father, we just thank you, Lord. We thank you for Al's ministry that you've given him, Father. We thank you for the health you've given him. And we just would pray that he would be able to continue according to your will, Lord. And maybe there's a point where he would have to stop. But as you comfort him and come alongside of him Lord and we thank you that we can do that as well as believers and we thank you for just what you having out here with us and his maturity in you Lord and we thank you that we can share that and encourage one another. In Christ's name, Amen.

So the main point here is that when someone has a spiritual problem, he calls the spiritually mature in to help, and their function is to pray over him. That's the function here that James was talking about in his previous verses. But before they pray with him, they are to anoint him with oil. This is not a symbol of the Holy Spirit or oil used for medicinal purposes. This is the secular, the mundane word for anoint here. And if it were being used for physical healing or for the Holy Spirit, James would have used a different word. And so this has simply to do with the idea of It's the idea of putting on lotion, in our common perspective.

They're worn out. Their bodies are literally looking peaked from the spiritual struggle. Yeah. I thought it was interesting that Weiss, you see what Weiss translated that as? Massage. Which I thought was kind of interesting because it kind of said, hey, this person, he needs to be revitalized in the sense of It's something to ease the issue. It's not going to heal it. That's right. The brain's going to heal it. The white one's just going to be made to smooth it out a little bit.

Yeah, you know, when you get in spiritual depression, what do you do? you stop taking care of yourself. And it starts to show. You don't pay attention to the way that you dress. You just start to literally stop caring about anything and everything. And in this case, the same words are being used for that. Your physical appearance has started to fail or start to show.

And so the idea is that they not only come alongside in a prayerful sense, but they also put oil on this person so that they could That's almost showing a hands-on approach. I think that's a good way of putting it. So without trying to read too much into that, that's the situation that I see here in the text and the use of the words here points to that. Obviously these passages, I'll talk about that maybe at the end, have been used in many ways to teach a different kind of thing.

So, and the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick. Notice that it's the prayer that restores, not the anointing. That was just for the physical state of the believer. And the word sick is different from the one used in verse 14. This is comno. And in the centuries old, older meaning was sick, but by the time of Christ it meant weary, exhausted, and fatigued. And that's how they used it. So this is accurately translated, I believe, fatigued, and the believer has become fatigued under the pressure of the spiritual trial. He's wearing out. So the elders come in, offer a prayer in faith, and this prayer guarantees the weary believer will be restored.

How is that restoration going to happen? Is it all of a sudden they're going to bounce up and be 100%? Or is it a fellowship thing, where if they're praying alongside with the elder there's a restoration that comes alongside that event and that prayer and it seems to be that in this case they were spiritually crushed in spiritual depression and the solution was to ask for prayer and the spiritually matured to come alongside and pray with them and there was a restoration that began a process that began in that believer's life So much like you, Al, may begin to feel restored and sense a restoration as you pray, maybe it's in your own prayer, maybe the prayer offered by Roger and with us as we all pray for you, there's a restoration that begins to take place. And maybe that means that you do have to stop because your physical body is incapable of continuing, but spiritually you are restored and you recognize that you are doing what the Lord wills you to do, and you're in fellowship with Him in that way. And so, we're not looking for a physical or even a mental reaction that we expect to see. Restoration in a believer happens in many different ways, and sometimes it takes months or years for a restoration to fully take place. But there is this idea of those spiritually mature believers coming alongside, praying, and restoration taking place.

I mean, this is fellowship, right? James is pointing to the fellowship of the church and the focus being vertical towards God in prayer. It's not the believers that are healing one another, it's the Lord doing the restoration, but it's being done through the channel of prayer, and that's the real privilege that we have there. So again, I'll keep going here with verse 15, just to get it all in context.

So if the elders come in and pray in faith, this person will be rescued from their spiritual weakness, and the Lord will raise him up. And that's the Greek word for energy. We get our word energy from it, but it means to restore, literally to make erect. And so the Lord will restore his spiritual posture. I like that way of thinking about it.

You see yourself just spiritually laid out and crushed under trial, and in the event that the spiritual immature come alongside and pray with you, you see this being raised up to spiritual posture. You immediately think of the story of the paralytic being lowered down through the roof. And Jesus said, your sins are forgiven. And people quibbled with that. He said, well, what's easier, to say your sins are forgiven or to rise up and walk? So I say unto you, stand up, take up your mat, go home.

So, again, we are a whole creature and God has intended that all of it be synchronized and working together. And when one part of it, whether it's the spiritual or the emotional or the physical, when one part's out of whack, it affects the other parts.

And this that you're bringing up this morning is just is just right on for what so many people in the church have not fully appreciated. They've taken one verse out and run off, like you said about the anointing with oil and so on. No, that's true. I think what I'm getting from these verses is a really unique early church.

Again, James and these believers were on the very front edge, and they had only the oral words from Christ himself, and James was introducing a lot of new information to them in ways that they hadn't fully put together yet. And here he is introducing a fellowship within the body that is very unique, and we carry our burdens together, and there's a method for doing that. I think of so many that end up in maybe a home fellowship, and not to say that those instances are not the most Not to say that that's not what the Lord has for them right then and there, but I think about when you see a mature body grow and you have Spiritually mature leading the church like James is introducing us to and Paul and Timothy clarify further later. You see a wonderful Fellowship amongst the believers and James is saying we got to stick together with this stuff.

You're crushed and And here's the situation, and we have prayer. And we're going to talk about that, and he's going to use Elijah to introduce that. But not only did he say in verse 15 that the Lord will raise him up, he also said, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him. Now, is that positional forgiveness or experiential forgiveness? I think it's the fellowship with the Lord factor.

It's the 1st John 1.9 factor, right?

It kind of seems like it was an early 1st John 1.9.

I think there's another early 1st John 1.9 in the first verse that I'm going to be teaching this morning. Therefore confess sins to one another. And so we've got this forgiveness of sins and confession of sins in the next verse.

And so, that's right, 1st John 1.9, though it hasn't been written yet, the concepts are there in the book of James for John to build on in the book of 1st John.

So, this is a third class condition, which means, in all likelihood, he has committed sins, and indicates this is the root of his problem. Sin is the problem to spiritual depression. Any depression, sin is the issue. No matter whether you're a believer or not, sin is the issue of depression. Even if it's a mental state and it has to be treated with some kind of medical scenario, sin is still the cause of why the brain fails to have hope, or whatever it is that happens in a medical situation. Sin's the factor. God did not create us to deal with those things.

Sin brought that situation in, but there is a solution to it. First, it's salvation. Then, as a believer, as you get into a sin and you find yourself in spiritual depression, God gives us yet another solution to deal with that situation. In this case, it's prayer from the spiritually mature and the recognition that your sins are forgiven. It is a claiming what is already true, positionally. So when the believer confesses his sins, he will be forgiven, and that is, he will be restored to fellowship so he can walk in the light. So let's look at the verses for today, and I realize I spent a lot of time reviewing, but it'll help us run into these verses much quicker. I won't have to say as much, I don't think.

That way we tie them all together. So therefore, as a result of the spiritual weakness or depression, which may have significant physical implications, you must, and this is an imperative, you must confess It means to admit. So you must admit. So this is a horizontal family. I talked about vertical fellowship with the Lord. This is a horizontal family fellowship. You're confessing your sins to fellow believers. So here's the situation that James is presenting.

Potentially you sinned against a fellow believer. And we talked a lot about that in previous chapters. There were situations that they were dealing with greed, and they weren't listening, and there was a lot of struggles that these believers had. And so in light of that, some of them likely had fallen into the state of spiritual depression and weakness.

What James is not saying is go publicly and confess to unbelievers all of your sins. You've seen situations in church where people get up to the front and they just pour out their entire, you know, dirty laundry to you. And that is not, I do not advocate that and I don't think that's what James is saying at all. This is a one-on-one situation that is between the spiritually mature or a fellow believer that you potentially sinned against. And it's talking about, contextually, the spiritually weak person confessing his sins to one another.

So in the situation where I find myself doubting God's ability to carry me through a prison ministry, if in fact, and I'm not saying now that this is your situation, but if you had doubted God and so decided to just believe what doubt you had, and by all means you were physically capable, but you doubted to the point that you just gave up. not trusting the Lord in that case, and you said, you know, Roger, this is what I've been going through, then his prayer and that confession is all in context to what James is talking about here. And I'm not suggesting that there's sin there, but I'm just saying that in light of the reality that you brought up this morning, this verse would fit that. So the sin comes off in the doubting. That's right. It is. Whatever our faith is.

And so, in this particular imperative of confess, you would simply say, I have doubted, I admit it, and I need spiritual restoration, would you pray for me? And that's what this verse is talking about. You know, and you might do that with your spouse, you know, because that's the body as well. You may confess your sins to one another and you may say, you know, babe, this is what I'm going through. I've got a sin issue.

And, you know, we would be falling in line with this verse in terms of confessing. Confessing goes much greater than what James says here. And especially in first John one nine, we see it in some of its fuller light. But all of the ideas behind confessing is simply calling it what it is. It's bringing something to light so that you can be restored.

Instead of just tucking it away, which leads to spiritual depression, which leads to a greater lack of fellowship both with the Lord and with your fellow believers. We think about being out of fellowship and it affecting our vertical fellowship with God, but it also greatly affects our horizontal fellowship with believers. You foster that, and some part of the body is not going to be functioning in the way that it should, because there's not fellowship there. So the elder is the righteous man whose prayer can accomplish much, but nowhere in scripture is public confession of sin commanded or condoned.

So we just want to be real mindful that this is a private conversation that you have with a select number of people that are necessary in order to get out what is inside from a sin perspective and admit it so that you can be restored. It's not the idea of getting all, you know, tangled up in it for hours and upon hours and just rolling through dirty laundry, you know, as an example.

This is, admit it, get it out of the way and find this spiritual restoration that can be had through the prayer of a righteous man. And that's what this says, in the prayer for one another, it says, therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. So we're dealing with this word healed again. So prayer and healing and what's going on here?

So, kind of building off what happened in the previous verses here, this healed oftentimes carries a physical connotation, and it may have certain physical implications, but I believe that James is talking about the root of physical Many physical situations have a sinful spiritual situation attached to it.

And that seems to be what James is talking about. In fact, even his reference to Elijah has to do with a sin situation and not a healing situation. And I'll talk about why he chose the rain passage rather than the healing of the little boy that's in that same chapter. So he chose to use a spiritual situation and that helps us even better understand why James was talking about or why he used the word healed in this way.

But it means to deliver one from a variety of ills or conditions that lie beyond physical maladies. It could mean restore or heal just in a spiritual sense. So you have to use the context to determine how this word is used. And while I wouldn't deny that there are physical aspects to the healing, I think that the focus is about spiritual restoration. The word restore, confess, all of these things insinuate that there was a sin issue at the back of what this healing was doing.

So the issue is being restored from spiritual weakness, given a renewed energy to endure the trial at hand. And I just pulled out some verses that Bob used last week. In 1 Corinthians 12, 9, we know that there were gifts of healing in the apostolic era. But in verse 13 it says, but when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away. So we know that there was a time where these gifts had their effectiveness for building the church, but there was also an end to those.

And then maybe somebody could just look up Romans 8.26, we could read that again, just to remind us what Bob talked about last week with healing. It says in the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. So, when we're thinking about a full understanding of how healing takes place, there's more than what James said.

There's also what Paul said in Romans 8.26. But are we to neglect the opportunity God has given us to receive prayer and have a conversation with the spiritually mature? and have the prayer of a righteous man accomplished much on our behalf, I think that it is in parallel and works alongside the fact that even our own indwelling Holy Spirit is praying in ways for us that we cannot even say in our own words. And it accomplishes healing as well, and restoration. So, when you put these together, you've kind of got the surround sound perspective on some of this stuff. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. So prayer is simply talking to God, and here it's the word which is prayer with urgency.

So in Philippians 4.6, someone grab that verse for us real quick. Yeah. 4.6 says, Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication. With thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

So here, this is a conversation with the Lord, but it is one that has a sense of urgency associated with it. So this urgent prayer of a righteous person, why would it be urgent? Why would there be this aspect to the word here? The spiritually mature man desires, in an urgent way, to go to the Lord with another believer's issue and situation and sin, so that they can find fellowship and restoration. That is one of the motives behind the spiritual mature, to teach the flock, to encourage them, and to pray for them. And so there's this urgency that's associated with what's going on here. And Scripture commonly promises that God will answer prayer when believers meet certain conditions. There's a state of being before the Lord that makes prayer more effective.

And these are conditions that are summed up by the fact that he is a righteous man. So the elder is a righteous man. Remember, we haven't got a full clarity on what an elder is, because James, his responsibility was not to define the church leadership in the same way that Paul and Timothy do. But nonetheless, he definitely recognizes the righteous and the spiritually mature within the body. So this is the word righteous, just simply being in accordance with God's standards of conduct. Now, I use that word conduct, and I mentioned that the righteous man, he's living a godly life and thus it is his prayer that can accomplish much.

Let's take that and just put a little bit of identification surrounding that. This is not a person who appears to show up early at the church and leave late and his conduct is always seen in light of others as being everything that he was hired to do. And it seems like this guy can do no wrong. That's not the situation here.

That's not what righteous is. This is, to put it more in an identification light, this is one who is trusting at a greater degree the Lord to do the living through him, and meets qualifications that we now see for eldership. meets those qualifications as well. But at the heart of it, he's righteous. It doesn't say that he is, you know... He's not sinless. That's right. He's not sinless.

And we're not talking about all those qualifications that we read later on in the New Testament, but we're talking about the very root of how he operates in his life. He is trusting the Lord to do the living at a greater degree than the rest of us. That makes him spiritually mature.

And this is a man, right? I mean, because we're talking about elders, so... Well, it is. Presbyteros is the word there. So we realize, but for James, we don't have the full clarity on the qualifications of an elder. You would think something like David. Did he do everything righteously? Absolutely not. But he was a man after God's own heart because his attitude toward God was one of faith and trust and belief and obedience. That was his additive, even though his actions didn't always follow the...

I think we've done what I believe is a great job of sticking to the word when it comes to conduct in this body. We're not looking at how a person behaves in order to determine exactly to what degree that they're trusting the Lord. We are truly coming alongside praying. We're focusing less on all of the things, and we're focusing more on the root of it, and that is the fellowship with the Lord issue. Remember, James is all about doing. You know, he's a righteous man and praying and confessing. He's all about the doing and Paul is all about how that doing gets done. So we just keep that in mind.

We think of Romans 12, receive a weak brother in the faith but not doubtful disputations. It's supposed to be one of Encourage the fellowship. Edifying and encouraging. Not judging and arguing. That's right. I mentioned here that the phrase righteous man does not mean righteous by justification, but righteous by sanctification.

Remember, James is talking about all the outward behavior that a man has before his fellow believer. And so we are constantly trying to see James in light of further revelation that we have. But at this point in time, they are just trying to get the doing figured out and grow in their understanding of how that doing gets done later. And James definitely talks about the motivations behind things. He doesn't just merely talk about the outward appearance. There are heart issues that James brings up. We've talked about those.

You mentioned it already, the thing that kicks us all off is not the elders, it's the believer that's struggling or having issues. He's the one that starts this process. It shows a picture that later on the process is that the body looks to the leadership or looks to the elders of that group to guide them, so they go to them first. It's not like the elders going, now we're going to go out and I'm going to talk to each of you and find out what your issues are.

Good point. Who initiates this thing? That's really key. It's the sinful, spiritually weak believer. He kicks it off. He's the one that says, I've got an issue here. And I know where the Lord says the solution is and I'm coming to you for that. And notice that he prays for this guy, and he takes care of his physical well-being, and he prays for him. He listens.

All of these things are presupposed, but they're components to being able to pray properly for a person, is hearing and having that kind of relationship that's open, where a believer can walk right in. He doesn't have to book a, you know, it's not like a priest where we can't get access to him or something like that. I'm simply coming to you, I'm admitting the situation, and because that person is trusting the Lord to do the living at a greater degree, he's spiritually mature, and his prayer is more effective in that situation. Well, we're told that prayer that's effective is lined up with God's will.

And those people who are kind of bouncing in and out of God's will, as it were, are not going to have the same effectiveness, because they're almost like James' double-minded man. They're sort of going with their human logic, and then they're saying, well, no, I need to trust God. No, I can work this out myself. No, no, I better go to God.

That's right. And I think that what you're saying is completely communicated through the illustration that James uses here with Elijah. And just to kind of segue off of that, we'll talk about that next part of the verse. It says, Elijah was a man with a nature like ours. Why do you think he said that?

Here he's illustrating the power of prayer, and he's referring to Elijah's experience in 1 Kings 17.1, and then 18.1, and then finally the 41 through 45. Why don't we just go ahead and read those three sets of verses, and then I'll fill in all the context between it.

Now Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the settlers of Gilead, said to Ahab, As the Lord, the Lord of Israel, lives before whom I stand, surely there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word. Now it came about after many days, but the word of the Lord came to Elijah, in the third year saying, go show yourselves to Ahab and I will send rain on the face of the earth. Okay, and then 41 through 45. Now Elijah said to Ahab, go up, eat and drink for there is a sound of a roar of a heavy shower. So Ahab went up to eat and drink.

But Elijah went up to the top of Carmel, and he crouched down on the earth and put his face between his knees. And he said to his servant, Go up now, look toward the sea. So he went up and looked and said, There is nothing. And he said, Go back. And it came about the seventh time. Behold, a cloud as small as a man's hand is coming up from the sea.

And he said, go up, say to Ahab, prepare your chariots and go down, so that the heavy shower does not stop you. So it came about in a little while that the sky grew black with clouds and the wind, and there was a heavy shower, and Ahab rode and went to Jezreel. Okay, so Elijah, being a ninth century prophet, he lived during the idolatrous reign of King Ahab, and that's what we're talking about here.

So there's a prayer for, that we're gonna move into in the next set of the verse here. But we're talking about right now just his nature, and we'll talk about the situation that we just read about, and I'll fill in the commentary next. But here at this point, before introducing what Elijah did to these Jewish believers, he talks about the nature of Elijah. He says he's a man with a nature like ours and that could be translated a man of like feeling or similar suffering. So he was a human being that suffered too.

Why did these Jewish believers need to hear this? And in many ways, the Jewish believers and Jews, and that was what they were previously before they trusted the Lord for their salvation, Elijah was semi-deified by the Jews. He was on a higher pedestal as a prophet, as all the prophets were. But what James is saying to these Jewish believers is that Elijah could receive an answer to prayer in the same way that we can receive an answer to prayer. He's a man just like us. I remember when they were questioning about John the Baptist.

Who are you? Are you Elijah? Yes. There was the promise. There was context. They were looking for Elijah to come as a forerunner to Messiah. So yes, Elijah was a perfect example to use. He was not. someone special. Even though he was a special messenger and had special ministries, he was a man.

That's right. His prayer carries the same effectiveness of the spiritually righteous man in the verse previous. And that's what's going on here, is that James is directing the spiritually fatigued believer to the spiritually mature and saying that their prayers can be just as effective as Elijah's prayer. He's a man with a nature like ours. And that prayer can be successful to restore you, to raise you up back into a spiritual posture. And that's what he's driving home. So let's read. I know this is pretty wordy, but this whole verse kind of goes together. We don't need to break it down and look at the individual words. We just need to understand the story behind it, I think.

Elijah is a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. So that's that first verse we read. Elijah did that. And then, the 18.1 that we read, then he prayed again, and the sky poured rain, and the earth produced its fruit. And that 41 through 45 that we read was the reality, the answer to the prayer. So we've got those three verses, but let's also go back and read 16.33 and see what's the background to why why Elijah was being told to do this. So Elijah is sent to announce the cursings for violation of the Mosaic covenant.

This is a king who did more evil than any other king of Israel, right? That's the situation. So Elijah is bringing about, as prophets do in the Old Testament, bringing about the will of God through their word that they received from him. And we have in 1st Kings 17, in that first verse, it doesn't say prayer. So why does James say that he prayed earnestly if it doesn't say prayer?

But 17.1 strongly implies that he prayed with the statement he makes concerning the Lord, before whom I stand. Remember, when you're praying, you're talking to God.

We know that the prophets had revelation from God. In this case, that Ahab needed to suffer through a drought for three and a half years in order to get the point. And so there was a conversation, even though the word prayer is not said there, it is absolutely necessary for that understanding of Elijah to bring about the cursing on Ahab because he stood before the Lord and he received information concerning Ahab's situation and the consequences of it.

So there's a conversation there. And that's what James is saying. And there was an earnest conversation at that. And that word prayed earnestly is a Hebraism, and that is a Hebrew phrase that's spoken in the Greek language, and it literally says, and he prayed prayer. So if you look in the Greek, it has two words that say prayed prayer, but we translate it, he prayed earnestly, because that Hebraism in Greek doesn't, it's an emphasis thing, and it doesn't come across in the Greek language in the same way that it did in the Hebrew language. And so we've got this idea that he really prayed. He really had deep, earnest conversation with the Lord. I mean, you can imagine, he may have prayed that there would be another way.

I mean, I'm going to suffer through drought too. If you're saying that it's going to be three and a half years, what am I going to do? That's not in the text, but you can anticipate. Oftentimes the prophets struggled with their own situation. They sometimes would find themselves in deep spiritual depression about the reality of what they had to do. Think of Jonah and others that just didn't want to do it. I don't know that that's the case for Elijah by any means.

Whatever the case, it caused his conversation with God to be very earnest and persistent. And it could have been a prayer to relieve Israel from the evil of Ahab. So, instead of trying to find out if there was another way before the Lord, maybe he prayed for the destruction that the Lord then gave. We don't know exactly the conversation that took place, but we know the consequences of the evil were taken care of with the drought. And we know that the Lord answered that prayer, and that's the point that's going on here. So he really prayed that Hebraism there.

Elijah's earnest prayer gets results, rather. And it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. That was a historical reality that took place. Even Jesus refers to this, not in the same way, but he talks about the days of Elijah when the sun didn't shine, and there was three and a half years, and so this event was a big event, and all these Jewish believers would have had this on their mind very clearly.

They were taught it, they understood it, they understood the consequences of evil leadership, and they understand. In fact, this chapter has so much in it. Elijah being fed by the ravens and the healing of the widow's boy. That brings up an interesting point.

If James was talking about physical healing, why wouldn't he just have talked about the healing of the widow's son? Why wouldn't he have gone there? He lays on him three times and gets up and the boy is alive. If anyone needs to know a good passage in the Old Testament about healing, that's a pretty good one. It's not that it's a spiritual thing. It's a spiritual attitude that has gotten so far that it could be represented by even what I have. you know, was doing. And that's the context.

And so in the last part of 1 Kings 18.1, James refers to, then he prayed again and the sky poured rain and the earth produced its fruit. So the prayer was also answered in verse 45 that we read. It says that there came a heavy shower. So I think that a lot can be missed here, but there are some really unique parallels I want to talk about.

But the point is that the Lord answered Elijah's prayer and caused the earth to bear fruit. The earth was dry and could not produce the fruit, and now the earth was wet and could produce. So let's look at the parallels here that I think that James would have been driving home.

So when believers are spiritually weak or fatigued, they are like the earth without rain, dry and unfruitful. When believers are restored spiritually, they are like earth with rain, moist and fruitful. The Lord wants all believers to bear much fruit. And what's the avenue to that?

The spiritually mature, the righteous man praying. The confession that the person that is in spiritual weakness initiates with the spiritually mature. The confession takes place, remember that was an imperative, you must admit this. and he'll pray, he'll anoint you with oil, and you'll be restored. The main point of parallel between Elijah and James is that spiritual failure can be reversed by the prayer of a righteous man. In 1 Kings it was a national spiritual failure, but in James 5 it's an individual spiritual failure.

And I think that's one of the biggest things that James is doing with these Jewish believers is saying, we talk about rightly dividing the word, and he is using these national, corporate, Israelite realities to drive home individual spiritual situations within the church context.

And it was just taking place. James, I can't imagine a better book to transition from law into grace in a way that makes sense for where they were. When you really look at the time, the chronological order, and the situation that these Jewish believers were in, and just the persecution that they were dealing with from the Jews themselves and the Romans, and just the challenges of focus and understanding that they would have been dealing with, I mean, James is just laying it down so that there's no question. I'm not giving you a lot of spiritually heavy information. I'm taking the real understanding of how God taught the Israelites and I'm now moving from a national perspective to an individual perspective and I'm talking about how that same prayer that was efficient for the nation of Israel can be efficient for your little sin issue. When I say little, it may be big to you, but it's little in light of what Ahab was doing, right?

But James is saying, this is the method here. This is what we're talking about. And we don't want to get caught up so much in the method that we forget about the relationship situation here. We're talking to the Lord. We're not talking about a God in a system of belief that just rains down however he sees fit in such a way that you don't have access to him and that you cannot have a personal relationship with. And James is talking about a very personal relationship here, not only with fellow believers but with the Lord.

And that personal fellowship was there for Israel as well. So in both cases, restoration requires confession by the party, failing spiritually, coupled with the prayer of a righteous man. Additionally, there are two chief elements in Elijah's prayer worth noting. First, it was in harmony with the will of God. So, Al, you mentioned that earlier.

When Elijah prayed, he was praying according to what God had revealed would be with hell, and that was the rain. So, he knew the will of God, and he prayed in accordance with it. God also revealed when the rain would return. So in those previous, the verses that we talked about in red, we see God revealing that the rain would come back.

And so Elijah's prayer was in line with the will of God in that way. And secondly, it was persistent. It was earnest. So it had a condition about it. It wasn't just Yeah, when I think about it, I'll pray about it. You know, this was a... Interesting, seven times he said it's a sort of... I know, I know. Yeah, there's a... Persistency, right. Persistency.

You can kind of imagine he goes out there and the cloud's still kind of small. That's never going to get here and have any rain for that little cloud. You know, from man's perspective, it seems like that's... That's an impossibility. That little cloud out there is going to miss rain.

Yeah. That's right. Well that's what I have for today. We seem to get through it a little quicker sometimes. Sometimes off that way. But are there any questions or thoughts that could be... Yes, Pat. The prayer offered in faith, does that mean that faith has to be of a certain quality? So, are you talking about prayer offered in faith?

It's a translation. It's actually verse 15. It's a previous verse. It's 515. Oh, yeah. I guess that was last week. You can ask last week. No, I didn't. Well, isn't it somewhat like we were saying earlier? I was anyway about. Dr. Stanley this morning made a comment about prayer.

He said, where do you go first when you have a problem? Well, you go to your own resources. Then where do you go? Well, maybe a friend or relative or some expert, somebody who officially can help you with a problem. And then if all else fails, you go to God.

And the prayer, the life raft, or foxhole faith. God help me. I think there are a lot of prayers that go up that are not in faith. They're sort of hope so balloons that get sent up. So I think it's just an emphasis that you've got to know God first before you can talk to Him. You're not just talking to the ceiling or talking to the clouds. You have some knowledge about God. and then you pray in belief of what you have read and heard and seen.

I think that's accurate. We use the phrase, faith in the facts is like the train on the tracks, and feelings are like the caboose that follow. So when we think about our faith, we're never thinking about how the quantity of that faith. We're rather where that faith is focused. And so it's the faith in the facts. And so we're talking about praying according to the facts. In other words, you're praying in light of what you know to be true in the scripture.

And so a prayer offered outside of faith would potentially be, hey, Lord, we'd really like the Broncos to win today. Is that a prayer of faith? I mean, is that the way the Lord... Maybe there's performance that we could hope for from our athletes, and maybe the athletes offer a prayer of faith based on their desire to glorify God in the things that they do. So there's ways that you can have prayers of faith in light of just circumstantial sports and things like that.

But in the context here, James is talking about a lot of spiritual weakness and a lot of fatigue, and he's talking about a restoration and a healing, and the prayer is not only offered by the righteous man, so where is that righteous man's focus going to be? His faith is going to be centered on the facts of the Word of God, because that communicates his righteous state of being.

And so when we think about praying by faith, we're talking about trusting the Lord, what he's revealed, and praying in the same way that he's revealed those things. And you pray, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable and dissectible, Lord, my strength and my redeem. And that is the Word of God. And so when you say and think and pray along those lines, you're praying within the revealed will of God. And we talk about praying outside, in the area of God's special will for us. We don't know exactly what that is, but it will always be in line with His specific will for us, His revealed will. And so I think the faith attached to the prayer talks about where that prayer is centered out of and where it's focused at.

Does that make sense? Yeah. I'll let Bob clarify. I'm not the expert on verse 15. No, I'm just kidding. Let us do pray. Lord, we thank you that we have your revealed word and that we can go to it and we can understand where we are in light of who you are. that we know that we are adopted sons and daughters, that we find ourselves blessed beyond what we could ever hope for.

The grace that you've shown us in placing us in the heavenlies where you are and where we are found is something that we can never fully grasp until the day that we are face-to-face with you and then we'll spend the rest of eternity continuing to learn about that same grace. We thank you that you are untapped with your love for us and that we can never fully experience it. We'll need eternity for that.

Just thank you so much that you are personal and the way that you set up for the believers in the time of James, Lord, we too. Enjoy the fellowship from believers and the ability to find healing from spiritual weakness and fatigue by confessing our sins to one another and receiving prayer and praying according to your will, just like Elijah did. And Lord, we thank you that you hear us and that you desire to have that conversation with us regularly. We love you very much. Thank you for the day. It's your name we pray. Amen.