James 5:1-6
The previous blog was about the first part of this message by James to wealthy Christians. Now he gives a message about the rich non-believer. As the non-believer will not listen to the words of a man of God, these verses are no doubt aimed at the Christians who suffer as a result of the actions of these wealthy people and who may be tempted to emulate them. It would also be aimed at the wealthy Christian who may be tempted to hoard their wealth..
The first thing James warns is that we are in the end times. Jesus has come and died for our sins. We are now living in the time before the second coming. The axe is already at the root of the trees (Matthew 3:10, Luke 3:9) and we are living on borrowed time. Those who choose to live their lives without regard for God are already under judgement. To put it in James’ words, their wealth is rotting, their gold and silver is corroded by their hoarding of wealth and this will testify against them because they have stored up treasures on earth rather than in heaven. This is again a reference to Jesus’ words in Matthew6:24 where he admonishes His disciples to build up treasure in heaven rather than on earth and to serve God not money. For those in the world it makes perfect sense to store up treasures in the world and lead the life of the rich but Godly wisdom shows that for the empty foolishness it is.
The wealthy think only of storing up more money than they need. They become so greedy for money that they hoard more and more. They do not pay their workers what is their due. They cheat their workers out of their rightful entitlements. Why? Because they want more wealth. They live in luxury, indulging every whim. They condemn and cheat innocent people who are not opposing them. If we put that last statement into modern terms it is not hard to see the greed at work in our world. The directors of multinational corporations who caused the Global Financial Crisis due to their desire to earn indecently large sums of money and bankrupted normal hard working people are classic examples. The multinational corporations that destroy virgin rainforests in the Amazon and Indonesia in order to grow more cattle or establish palm oil plantations. They care only for profits and destroy habitats, send animals to extinction and destroy the livelihoods of indigenous peoples. The company that sacks a worker they no longer require and denies that person their entitlements. The company does not need to deny the worker what they are entitled to. They do it out of greed.
In Luke 16:19-31 Jesus tells the story of the rich man and Lazarus begging and ill at his gates. When Lazarus and the rich man die, the rich man sees Lazarus in heaven from where he burns in hell. He begs God to send Lazarus to warn the rich man’s equally greedy brothers of the hell that awaits them. Here the answer is that if they do not listen to the messages of the prophets they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead. We can see this for the wonderful prophetic insight into Jesus’ own death and resurrection and rejoice in it. However, there are people in this world who know about Jesus and choose not to believe. Who are these people? I have already mentioned some but there are others and you can see many mentioned in the below passage.
Isaiah 5:8-12: “Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field till no space is left and you live alone in the land. The LORD Almighty has declared in my hearing: “Surely the great houses will become desolate, the fine mansions left without occupants. A ten-acre vineyard will produce only a bath of wine; a homer of seed will yield only an ephah of grain.”
“Woe to those who rise early in the morning to run after their drinks, who stay up late at night till they are inflamed with wine. They have harps and lyres at their banquets, pipes and timbrels and wine, but they have no regard for the deeds of the LORD, no respect for the work of his hands.”

James 4:13-17
This section is tied to 5:1-6. It discusses the way God tests faith through wealth. This section to the end of chapter 4 is about the Christian who has wealth.
James starts by describing behaviour that is normal for a merchant of that time. That is to go to a place and sell goods for money. But God expects the Christian to conduct business God’s way.
In Luke 12:16-21Jesus talks about the rich man who builds bigger barns to store his bumper crop. God tells him he is a fool because that very night his life will be demanded from him, so the riches he has stored away will go to someone else. We must be rich towards God not ourselves. If you continue to read Luke 12 to verse 34 you will see Jesus talks about having trust in God to meet our needs and of the importance of storing up treasures in heaven because where our treasure is our heart will also be.
This does not mean we should preface all our plans with “if it is the Lord’s will” or “God willing” because that is merely outer dressing, appearing to be demonstrating faith in God but not spending the time doing what we should be doing. What should we be doing? We should seek God’s plan and follow His will in our lives. How do we do that? By prayer and studying of the scriptures. Then if He wills you to go to a place to make some money you can say.
“I have sought God and this is what He is directing me to do.”
Then you seek His will for what to do with the money. The boastful are making plans of their own choosing without seeking God’s approval, probably because they know they are doing what God does not want them to do. These people seek to control their lives without understanding that we do not have that control and when we try to take it then our lives become really messy and we have to move further and further away from God to continue to control our lives and to get what we want. This person will never give God the credit for the success they have, they are too much in love with the world to stop to think about God.
James admonishes the wealthy Christian with the words that each one “knows the good he ought to do” (v17 NIV). But these wealthy Christians know the good they should do and don’t. They may be honest in every other area of their business yet they hide their money away for their own purposes and do not ask God how He wants the money He gave them to be used. Why? Probably because they are frightened God will ask them to use the money to help others and they really want to keep it for themselves. That greed is sinful.
For most of us living in Western countries, we are comfortably off. We do not have large bank accounts but we can afford more comforts in life than we need. So if that is your life, what do you do with the money God gave you? If God calls you to use that money somewhere other than to your benefit, do you?

James 4:7-12
This is the way The Message interprets the passage: “So let God work his will in you. Yell a loud no to the Devil and watch him scamper. Say a quiet yes to God and he’ll be there in no time. Quit dabbling in sin. Purify your inner life. Quit playing the field. Hit bottom, and cry your eyes out. The fun and games are over. Get serious, really serious. Get down on your knees before the Master; it’s the only way you’ll get on your feet. Don’t bad-mouth each other, friends. It’s God’s Word, His Message, His Royal Rule, that takes a beating in that kind of talk. You’re supposed to be honouring the Message, not writing graffiti all over it. God is in charge of deciding human destiny. Who do you think you are to meddle in the destiny of others?”
In the previous blog I discussed how James had identified the quarrelling amongst the believers was due to greed. He challenged them to consider that their greed made them lovers of the world and haters of God. James spoke of the humble, who would constantly seek God and seek to be brought back into true faith with God, and God would give them the grace they needed to come back to Him.
Therefore James now admonishes the believers to submit to God and resist the devil (who has been stirring up dissent). James states that when we resist the devil he will flee from us. Because we are in Jesus, we have Jesus victory and authority against the devil. What we often lack is the humility and alertness to identify the devil’s deceits. We happily entertain jealousy and greed instead of recognising them as those “flaming arrows” from the devil that we should be using our faith to reject. So now we are alert. With your faith in God and in the victory won for you by Jesus, resist the devil and he will flee from you. Now you have told him to go, draw near to God in the humility that James identified as being so vital to our relationship with God. God, because He loves us, will draw near to us. We stand, knowing we are sinners, allowing Jesus’ blood to cleanse us, handing over our bad thoughts and desires to God so that He can purify our hearts. In our knowledge of our sinfulness and our shortcomings and the ways we have drifted away from God we feel so sad. Repentance is a hard pill to swallow. Forget the “feel good” worship experience. It does not work in the time when we need to repent. We must stand before God in true repentance which does not feel good. James describes it as lamenting, mourning and weeping. We are not laughing and we are not joyous. We are in mourning and feeling quite low. We stand before God in true humility. As we realign ourselves with God we stop seeking the world and cease to be double-minded. We are back to serving God, not the world. And in our brokenness God lifts us up.
Now we are restored, James reminds us not to continue in our arrogance for that is the evidence that we have failed to repent. We must not speak evil of one another and we must not judge. We are called to be followers of God, desiring to live our lives according to His will. Only Jesus has the authority to judge. Therefore we must continue to stand before God in humility and not speak evil of others or judge them. Do what The Message has written. Honour God’s message and don’t write graffiti all over it.