Have you ever just looked to the sky and ask God “Why not now Lord? I’m ready, and I don’t want to see this world get any more wicked. This is plenty bad enough. Please, come and get your children!” Well, no doubt those in the days of scripture were very much looking to the same Heaven and saying the same thing. It was they who James was speaking to when He penned the Words God spoke. We know this because in the first verse of the first chapter James tells us who he is speaking to:
James 1:1 KJVS
James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.
It is Israel. The Nation of God’s chosen people. The very people that had turned their back on God to the point that He gave the Gentiles the blessing of Salvation through His Son’s life being given on the cross. When the Jewish leaders continued to deny that Jesus was the Christ, God said ENOUGH! And God began a new work through the Gentiles and through the Apostle Paul. But He continued to work on Israel, although no longer through the traditions of man. It was now by God’s marvelous grace that Jew and Gentile alike could come to the saving grace of Jesus Christ with the promise that He’d return for His Children and then finish what He started with Israel. And now we’re here, waiting for God to come and get us.
In frustration. With patience wearing thin and the temptation to take matters into your own hands most every day. Or perhaps that’s just me.
BE PATIENT
James 5:7-20 KJVS
Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.
Be patient… James said. Jesus is waiting too, but He has patience because He wants both the fruits of yesterday and the fruits of tomorrows while there is still tomorrows to be had. I usually think of that right after I’ve asked Jesus to come and get me. What if He did? How many souls do I know that would be damned to Hell because they’re not saved? Far, far too many.
BE PATIENT
Again James says it, but this time he’s speaking of the Prophets of old.
[8] Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. [9] Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door. [10] Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience. [11] Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.
Prophets who endured the unimaginable for us, and yet James said they counted them happy in what they endured because they knew that God would one day be glorified in their suffering. Job knew it when he told his wife that she spoke like a foolish woman, even though she too had endured the unimaginable of losing every child and belonging she had. She told Job to curse God and die! But Job did not because he knew there was a plan, even if he didn’t understand it. We have to realize that when we look at this world we have to believe THERE IS A PLAN! BE PATIENT.
And BE BUSY…
[12] But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation. [13] Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms. [14] Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: [15] And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. [16] Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. [17] Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. [18] And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit. [19] Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him; [20] Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.
There is plenty of things in those verses that causes one to wonder aloud, “Why did God not heal when I asked? Why did God not stop the storm when I asked?” Why… there are thousands of them. We read this scripture and doubt creeps in and we think God doesn’t hear, or we’re not living as we should, or any of the other one million reasons that the world tells you that scripture isn’t true. That it doesn’t happen as God said it would. But what we didn’t think about was who God was talking to, and at what dispensation in time was He speaking? This letter is to the Jews. It is written for our edification and encouragement but it is not written for out doctrine to live by. That’s why people get discouraged in the waiting. They’re waiting for the wrong bus. When James wrote this letter it was during the time when God was doing all kind of miracles in the lives of the Jewish people through the Apostles. But when the Gentile church came on the scene, you didn’t see those miracles happen after Paul. Not like it was then. There’s miracles… but not as it was in days of scripture.
So do we just sit and wait? Do we not pray? Do we not believe God can heal? Of course we believe!!! But God is not raising the dead because a preacher asked. He’s not healing every one the way we want Him to heal them, He may heal them in Heaven. But we ask! And we believe that God can and quite often He does and when He does we can rejoice. But when He doesn’t we can still rejoice in knowing that God has a plan and we’re apart of it.
That is why we have to stay busy. There is so much work for the church to do right now and the vast majority of them are waiting on the wrong bus. They’re waiting for God to come and get them and He will… but not until He’s done with the plan.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately. About the need to study the word and try to figure out what God’s doing or why He’s not doing something. And I’ve come to this conclusion. Patience is not my virtue. I’m better off staying busy. Get out of line for the bus and get back to work! Amen? Amen!