Thank You, Heavenly Father, that You are holy and that You purge out from us all that is unholy and unclean, and that You are gracious and able to deal with us in our sin. And we thank You that You are merciful and able to lift us up in our weakness and in our frailty, and that You are strong and good and true and gracious. And we pray, Heavenly Father, as we turn to You again and to Your Word, and as we listen to every word that comes forth from Your mouth, that You would place that word in our hearts that we may there begin to love You in new ways, place it in our minds, that we may understand Your ways better, touch our wills by it, we pray, Heavenly Father, that we may gladly submit our wills to Your perfect wisdom and Your sovereign will, and that in all of our life we may learn how to glorify You and to enjoy You indeed forevermore. And so we come to You again, Lord, and ask, speak, for Your servants are listening. We ask this all in Christ’s name and all God’s people said, amen. Amen. James 5 starting verse 13, please give your full attention, this is the word of our God. Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is anyone among you sick? 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. And a prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will rise him up. And if he has committed sin, he will be forgiven. 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. Elijah, 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. My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins. So far the reading of God’s word, may he indeed add his blessing to it. I wonder if you’re a patient people, are you people with patience? The word, of course, we get the word patient from originally means to suffer, to suffer. And I’m suffering with this podium right now. Of course, words take on a different meaning over time. They take on different meanings. Some stray far from their original meanings. Take, for instance, the word cute, right? Originally meant bow-legged. Or the word gentleman, originally meant a landowner, had nothing to do with their behavior, their politeness. And the connection between patient and suffering is pretty clear, though, when we think about it. though it’s kind of varied from that meaning in our understanding, our language and vernacular of our day. But think about, you know, we are doctors’ patients because we are suffering of something. Sometimes we suffer from the doctors, too. But waiting and being patient is suffering as well, as we read in our New Testament reading in Romans chapter 8. But I can think of very few things that bring us closer to the Lord than suffering. Right? Suffering. Not just physical suffering, but spiritual suffering, relational suffering, situational suffering as well. Right? And when we look all around us, we are told lies about our suffering. The world says to deny it, or simply to medicate the suffering away. Sometimes our flesh tells us that our suffering is caused, it’s our fault because of our failings. And sometimes that’s true. There are some who say they are followers of Christ, who tell us that our suffering is because we don’t have enough faith. And if we would just have faith, more faith, we could speak words and our suffering would go away. And we know, as we mentioned last time, that this is not biblical, it’s actually pagan. But as we close this passage in this book, let’s remember that James has been talking about suffering throughout. And so let’s look at our text now with some background to aid our understanding of what’s going on here. Because contrary to the lies of the world, and the lies of our flesh, and the demonic lies of false teachers, Scripture has much to say about suffering, more than we could ever handle in one day. And it tells us that suffering has a purpose. has a purpose, and there is a power provider through that, right, in and through and beyond our sufferings, and that, of course, is the Lord Jesus Christ. So we’re gonna look at a number of passages from Isaiah chapter 38. If you turn there now, Isaiah 38, the great Old Testament prophet Isaiah, to set the stage and get a feel for what’s going on in the background of some of this. Isaiah 38, I’ll be reading first. the first three verses. We have to remember that in the Old Testament period, prior to the glorious resurrection of Jesus Christ, sickness, serious sickness, was a major spiritual crisis for the people of God. And so listen to Isaiah 38, verses 1 to 3. It’s saying, in those days, Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death. And Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, came to him and said to him, Thus says the Lord, set your house in order, for you shall die, and you shall not recover. Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord and said, Please, O Lord, remember how I have walked before you in faithfulness and with a whole heart and have done what is good in your sight. And Hezekiah wept bitterly. And then going down to verse 10, He says, I said, in the middle of my days I must depart. I am consigned to the gates of Sheol for the rest of my years. I said, I shall not see the Lord, the Lord in the land of the living. I shall look on man no more among the inhabitants of the world. My dwelling is plucked up and removed from me like a shepherd’s tent, like a weaver I have rolled up my life. He cuts me off from the loom. From day to night, you bring me to an end. I calm myself until morning. Like a lion, he breaks all my bones. From day to night, you bring me to an end. Like a swallow or a crane, I chirp. I moan like a dove. My eyes are weary with looking upward. O Lord, I am oppressed. Be my pledge of safety.” And then continuing on in verse 18, For Sheol does not thank you, death does not praise you. Though you go down to the pit, do not hope for your faithfulness. Those who go down to the pit, do not hope for your faithfulness. The living, the living, he thanks you, as I do this day. The Father makes known to the children your faithfulness. The Lord will save me and he will play my music on stringed instruments all the days of our lives at the house of the Lord. Now Isaiah had said, let them take a cake of figs and apply it to the boil that he may recover. And so we listen to these verses and you can feel the lament and the terror even of Hezekiah being cut off from the presence of the Lord and the people of God. And we have to ask, why was the prospect of death such a cause of panic for Hezekiah? Well, in the Old Testament, of course, the land that God gave to his people as their inheritance was a type of their heavenly inheritance. It was a picture and a pointer of that heavenly inheritance. And at the center of that land was what, you recall, was the temple, right? The place where God dwelled with his covenant people, right? And you remember the glory cloud comes and fills that temple, and he takes up residence in the temple, symbolized by God’s holy presence in this glory cloud. The entire land was holy because it was set apart by God. His presence in the temple at the religious epicenter of their existence, geologically as well as religiously. And by means of these typological and sacramental arrangements, God’s old covenant people were taught to view the temporal blessings, like long life in the land, as a type of eternal life in communion with God. They related these two together. We know, of course, this makes sense, right? Leviticus 27, Deuteronomy 28, we have these lists of the covenant blessings and cursings, if they were to, these things would happen to them if they were faithful or if they were not. And on the other hand, right, of the temporal blessings, sickness and death, of course, were the curses of the Mosaic covenant under which they lived. They were the curses of that covenant that came upon those who violated the covenant. and were therefore regarded as God’s judgment upon them. And so to be cut off from the land, you see, in their minds in a very real way, to be cut off from the land and the temple and covenant people was to be cut off from God’s own presence. It was to be regarded as unholy, unclean, unfit for fellowship with the Lord God. And therefore when a pious Jew became ill, seriously ill to the point of death, this was a very serious situation. Very serious. Sickness was not loathed merely because of the physical suffering that they went through, but because of what it symbolized on the spiritual and covenantal plane, you see. What it was a picture of. The sickness meant that you were about to be cut off from the land of the living and therefore from God himself. And in a situation like this, the pious Jew would what? He would cry out to the Lord for deliverance from these things. And this form of prayer is called a lament. It’s a lament. Often laments include other things like cries of distress as the sick person lamented the fact that his fellow Jews were taunting him and interpreting his sickness as a form of divine abandonment on account of his sin. And sometimes the lament include other elements, right? And we see this particularly in the Psalms quite often. Laments would contain elements like confession of sin and a vow If he recovers, he would offer a special sacrifice in the temple. And if the Lord actually blessed that and he delivered that person from their sickness and granted him full recovery, the person would then go to the temple and pay his vow and make that offering as a sacrifice, as a result. And as a sacrifice is being offered, we get the other portion of this cycle, right? And that’s, he would offer a psalm of thanksgiving for that deliverance and that healing, to thank the Lord for those things and to rejoice in God’s loving kindness and favor towards him. And the fact that this all took place in the temple is very important. Again, this is the epicenter for the people of God, the religious epicenter, right? The temple. And so the physical restoration was interpreted how? in terms of a spiritual restoration of fellowship with God. You see that? That’s the Old Testament connection there. And of course, whenever we’re looking at scripture, and we’re looking at principles that it’s making, we’re trying to pull out what it says, remember those questions that we talk about a lot. We always have to ask, where are we, right? In terms of redemptive history, where are we on the timeline? Because we’re not in the Mosaic economy any longer, right? We have to ask, what time is it, right, in redemptive history? And so in the Old Testament economy, Old Testament way of thinking, the system, the physical restoration was interpreted in terms of spiritual restoration to fellowship with the Lord. And so also this whole process of sickness and lament and restoration and thanksgiving occurred both on the individual level as well as the corporate level. right, as an individual, but also as the people of God, corporately. And on the corporate level, we see several instances of this in Scripture, a lament like this. Psalm 102 is one of these corporate laments. Daniel 9, we have a corporate confession of all of Israel, right, groaning in exile while the temple remains in ruins. And then God responds to the cries of his covenant people, and he promises to restore them to the land and rebuild that temple. And so with this in the background, we come to James, and the discussion that he’s having, the things that are going on about sickness and suffering. And we see this context, and we see, remember the context leading into verses 19 and 20. The healing that’s mentioned at the end of verse 16 is a healing of forgiveness. It’s a healing of forgiveness, and the calling of the elders, you’ll recall, and confessing your sins to them through the ministry of the Holy Spirit is for spiritual healing. And so we can do away with lots of the abhorrent teaching derived from this verse, wrongly derived. And we look at that phrase, confessing to one another, right, in verse 16, it refers back to verse 14, right, this reference to calling the elders and having them pray for you. It’s the ministry of the Holy Spirit through the Church of Christ, right, glorious. And so then that you may be saved, right, and raised on the last day and forgiven, affirmed, assured in this, because the promises of God’s Word in his word. And so the last two verses there, 19 and 20, are a continuation of this topic that we began, or that he’s been talking about from verse 13 on, of this deathbed confession, of seeking reconciliation and assurance from the Lord through his ministry of the church in his last days, in the person’s last days. And so once more, verse 19, my brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wanderings will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins. You see, the restoration of the erring brother is occurring by means of the church’s ministry of reconciliation. Paul talked much about this in the Corinthian letters, right? We have been given a ministry of reconciliation. And so what’s going on here? And so with that kind of framework and the background of the Old Testament covenant, the Old Covenant sanctions, right, blessing or curse, tied closely together with physical and spiritual matters, individually and corporately, I know it’s a lot to take in, but you guys can do it. When we come to the New Testament, we see what? The corporate experience of all of Israel converges on the person of Jesus himself, converges upon him. He is the satisfaction of all these things. He’s the one that all these pointed to. He’s baptized in the River Jordan, recall, as the Lamb of God upon whom the totality of the sins of God’s people have been placed. He must undergo the covenant curse on behalf of all God’s people, of the elect. And when we finally come to that climactic moment, When Jesus is hanging upon the cross, what does he do? He takes upon his lips the opening words of Psalm 22, that Psalm of lament. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? But the Lord did not abandon his soul to the grave. He did not let his suffering servant see corruption, no. He raised him from the dead and he granted him full restoration, seating him at his own right hand in glory and honor. And as a result of that death and resurrection of Christ, therefore the old covenant promises of sickness, lament, and restoration, they’ve all been fulfilled. They’ve all been fulfilled. And the physical land of promise has now been transcended and fulfilled in heaven itself, because that’s what it was a pointer to, that’s what it was typological of. In the temple where God dwells in the glory cloud, in the midst of his people, has been transferred to heaven itself. Christ, recall the words of the New Testament, the chief cornerstone of that temple, and we are but living stones being built up in him. And when believers of the new age, the new covenant age gets sick, we don’t view sickness and death as a sign of God’s disfavor. Hebrews makes it very clear that all of that Old Testament economy, Christ was replaced with Christ, right? He replaces it. It’s obsolete. It was planned obsolescence. It is no more. We don’t view sickness in that way for us, God’s people. Instead, what do we look at them? If we don’t view them as sickness and death as a sign of God’s favor, how do we view them? How are we to view the sicknesses and the sufferings, even spiritual, relational, Situational suffering, how are we to view them then? Well, we view sickness and death as precursors to glory, precursors to glory. They’re indeed badges of belonging. They’re badges of belonging to Jesus Christ because our identity is in Christ. And that being the case, brothers and sisters, your life will pattern his life. And what was the pattern of his life? Suffering and then glory, right? And so away with all these aberrant teachings, they want glory now, they want the glory now, because I don’t want the suffering later, right? I want the end things to be the best things, and you should too. And the reality is outside of Christ, this is all the glory you’re going to get, and it will all be suffering afterwards. We praise God, he calls us, he plucks us from the fire, from his own goodwill, from his own love, placed upon us. and we identify with Him, our identity is in Him, and our lives pattern that Savior, suffering and then glory. And you know, Paul says that the sufferings of this present time, you remember what he says about them? They’re not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed. Hard for us to imagine. And he says we boast in tribulations. We boast in tribulations. Why? Because they produce character, and character produces hope, hope that will never be put to shame. James has the same perspective, and he calls us to rejoice in trials, since the trial of our faith is producing patience, and patience will have its perfect work. James says, be patient, my brothers, until the coming of the Lord. So we should not respond to serious sickness the way the Old Testament saints did. Instead, we ought to call for the elders of the church to come and minister to us. Verse 14, he says, we touched on this last week, he says, to anoint us with oil in the name of the Lord. To anoint us with oil in the name of the Lord. Psalm 133, I’ll read. It’s quite lengthy. I’m kidding, it’s three verses. It says this. Behold how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity. And he gives two similes, right? It is like the precious oil on the head, running down on the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down on the collar of his robes. It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion, for there the Lord has commanded his blessing, life forevermore. And what a beautiful picture. What a beautiful picture. And we see in Psalm 133, this oil, right? It’s referring to the ordination oil of the priestly office, right? Aaron, consecrated, being set apart, holy. And in Psalm 133, the simile of God’s people. That’s a picture of God’s people functioning as they were designed, set apart, holy, gloriously, right? Spreading the gospel of love. And of course, in the New Testament, post-Christ, A.D., this is a sign of the Holy Spirit who dwells in our hearts, as a down payment of the future resurrection of our bodies. In the Old Testament, anointing oil was used as a sign of God’s Holy Spirit, poured out, poured on and down a person when he was commissioned to office, ordained to office. Like the Holy Spirit pouring out over them, pouring out over you in power and blessing as you’re set apart from the rest of the world as holy, holy to the Lord. And when we come to the New Testament, all believers, we’re told, receive the anointing of the Holy Spirit. None of this two-tiered system of Christianity, none of this special blessing. We’ve been blessed with every blessing, Ephesians says. And the Spirit’s anointing is a pledge or down payment of our resurrected bodies. Listen to a couple of verses that speak on this. 2 Corinthians 1, 21 says, and it is God who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us. And it was also put his seal on us and given us his spirit in our hearts as a guarantee, right? You see the triplet there, they’re saying the same thing, right? He has anointed us. He’s put a seal on us. He’s given us his spirit as a guarantee. Then Ephesians 1.13, in him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory. And then Ephesians 4.30, last one, and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Just a few texts on that theme. And so when the elders come and they anoint the sick person with oil in the name of the Lord and pray over him, and as the sick person confesses his sins before the Lord and receives forgiveness by means of this deathbed ministry, if you will, that individual saint is what? He is set at peace. He’s set at peace awaiting the resurrection of his body, the certainty of his resurrection body. And unlike the saints of old, this prospect of death shouldn’t make us shake in fear, shouldn’t make us tremble in fear. Christ the Lord has been raised, right? Christ has been raised. And because of his resurrection, we never need to see death as cutting us off from God’s presence or favor ever again. Rather, death is what is merely the last trial that we must endure in our earthly pilgrimage And so having called us to faithfulness and patience in other trials that James has been telling us about in his letter so far, he ends by encouraging us in the face of our last trial, the last trial with the help of Christ’s church, and in the confidence that the Lord has prepared a crown of life for all those who faithfully serve him to the end. Oh, the glory, right? The glory of that song. But you might be saying, I don’t rejoice in my trials. I’m not perfectly faithful and patient. I’m barely faithful and patient at all. I do fear and shake and want my sufferings to stop. Enough already, done. Brothers and sisters, we must look away from ourselves, right, into the one who for you endured the most severe suffering anyone ever suffered for you, and rose again that you would have life in him and for him. You know, the Lord says elsewhere to the Apostle Paul, I’m sure you’re all familiar with it, right? Paul is pleading with the Lord to remove the source of torment for him, this thorn in the flesh. And he pleads with him. And you remember the word that comes back, the answer that comes back, He says, Paul, my grace is sufficient for you. And he says to us, my child, my grace is sufficient. It’s sufficient. Yes, in our flesh, in our weakness, we can’t handle this. We don’t want to hear this. Most of us have a hard time merely enduring sufferings, let alone to rejoice in our afflictions, because that’s how Christ is glorified? It’s more than we can handle. I know it is for me, in my weak flesh. How can James and Paul tell us these things? How can they tell us these things? It’s because they knew God is sovereign over all. They knew he works all things for our good, right? And that’s one of those, in case of emergency, break glass verses, right? Romans 8, 28. You shall memorize it, you shall use it often, preach it to yourself. He works all things for your good, to be called according to his purposes. They could say these things because they knew. They knew Christ’s power. They knew Christ’s power is magnified and shines brightly in our weaknesses. And therefore, Paul, and we as well, need not only to endure, but rejoice in our weaknesses, because Christ is all-sufficient for us, right? He’s all-sufficient. And so he says, when I am weak, then I am strong. I’m weak that I’m strong. You know, it’s kind of like salvation, right? It’s when you realize that you can’t work to earn it, you realize and admit you don’t deserve it, and when you acknowledge your brokenness and weakness, and when you threw your helpless self upon Christ, it was then that his power explodes in your life, right? Your weak life. And he strengthens you and his strength is revealed in giving you new life, full life, secure for all eternity, for glory in him. When you are weak, then you are strong in him. Do you have pain and suffering in your life? It’s a rhetorical question, of course we all do. Suffering, weakness, calamities, physical, relational, whatever it might be, that pound on you and beat you down. Remember and believe, brothers and sisters, God reigns. God reigns and he is at work, he is at his work. Remember and believe that Jesus Christ indeed is all-sufficient, always for you. He’s a powerful Savior. He’s powerful for you. Oh, what a Savior he is. His life for yours, all of his life for all of your life. What a Savior. Let us trust in Him for all, for our all, and let us do so again and again for everything, for His love, His mercy, His sovereignty, today and always. Amen. Let’s pray. Almighty and loving God, we thank you for for rescuing us from the just punishment, Lord, and giving us life in Christ. We praise you for the forgiveness that we have in Him. We pray, Lord, that as we suffer in this life, we would Cultivate reflexes to look to you and to be reminded of the glory that awaits us, and to be reminded that your strength shines through our weakness, Lord. Help us in that weakness. Help us to remember that though we are feeble and frail and forgetful and foolish, that you are strong, that you are mighty, and that you promise to be with us and care for us and carry us even unto glory in all of our days for all of eternity with Jesus. And we ask it in Christ’s name. Amen.