The Unscrupulous Rich (Part C)

I mean, if they can talk about their filth, we can talk about righteousness. So, if there are any of you here in the workplace and you feel a little nervous about, I better not ring in on this.

I say ring in. Why should Satan be the only one with a microphone? Why does he get to tell his side of the story and Christians shiver over in the corner because they're afraid they won't be liked anymore?

That's the problem when we begin to fear men and not God. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Rick is currently teaching through the book of James.

Stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. And now, here's Pastor Rick in James Chapter 5 with his continuing study called the Unscrupulous Rich. This is not an attack on the wealthy.

This is an attack on the unscrupulous. He says, And their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire. All that a soul has without him will be held against Jesus.

Whatever you get without him in your thinking, in your heart, works against you. To devour oneself is to harm oneself. That's the idea. He's saying there's consequences for this behavior. That's what James... I'm holding you accountable.

I'm telling you, you're not going to get away with this. By faith, you'll see it. By faithlessness, it will get you.

The choice is yours. If you are well-to-do and you are a believer, you are gifted with this wealth. It is listed in the gifts by the Apostle Paul. There are those who can give. But you have to give from this understanding. Whatever you have is given to you by God.

It belongs to Him. It is entrusted to you. And you can enjoy some of it. There's some degree of pleasure that you are permitted.

But when the tail wags the dog, there's a problem. And as far as giving, you go to the Lord with that. As the poor Christians are supposed to go, we know what our duty is.

We do that. But we who claim that we will praise Him forever, that we will love Him forever, we're not satisfied with mere duty. Duty is doing what I know I'm supposed to do, whether I like it or not, for however long.

It can be a hard run. It's not being a stoic. It's not being an epicarian either. It's finding that balance. It's obeying the Lord. Believe it or not, I know you won't believe what I'm about to tell you, but I'm susceptible to pity parties.

I get my little hat, my little party favor out, set up the whole house decorated, and have my pity party before the Lord. Why? Why? Why don't you do that?

Why can't you just a little bit? And I find it is an honor to get up off my knees and go do my duty. I'm going to do what I'm told anyway.

He doesn't have to bless me for me to do what I'm told. I just had a pity party a little while ago. You should have been there.

You weren't invited? You're busy with your own. And as the Lord does, just reminds you, hey, did you see that verse in Corinthians where Paul was talking about all things he suffered? You see, I get frustrated by what I think are stupid defeats. I can understand some defeats. I've marked out some of them for the Lord. Okay, Lord, these are approved. I can be defeated in these departments.

It's the ones that I haven't approved of where I suffer defeat and shame. I'm the king. And I look at the life of Paul and Jeremiah. Jeremiah got fed up with God. That's it. I'm done.

I wish I was never born. The guy that came and said, it's a boy, let him be cursed. That's what Jeremiah said.

He was so frustrated in the flesh, full blown. And God reels him back in. And so Jeremiah rides that roller coaster the next minute. He's praising the Lord the next minute. That 20th chapter, I believe it's the 20th chapter.

It might be the 23rd. What a ride. We see it in the life of Job. We see it in Jacob. And yet we see again Paul in Corinthians all the things he suffered. After the first beat down for Christ, I would have opted for a different community. All right, I'm moving.

I'm moving and I'm not going to that side of town again. But he goes back. They stoned Paul near to death. The disciples gathered around him, prayed for him.

And he got up and went back into the city that belonged to the thugs that stoned him. That's the kind of stuff I want. That's the kind of stuff I don't have. But that's not going to stop me from wanting it or pursuing it or preaching it. And so we come to verses and we look at those with gold and silver that are corrupted. And we listen again to Paul and say, I have not wanted your gold or your silver or your clothing.

I just wanted to preach the truth to you. I will get my gold when I get to heaven. And it will be in the face of my Lord Jesus. And that is the template for us all. And so he says, their corrosion will be a witness against you in verse 3.

It will eat your flesh like fire. You have heaped up treasure in the last days. Nothing wrong with saving money, but something wrong with withholding it when it's not your place.

When you have a debt that you are accountable for and you must pay. Now he mentions the last days. Ever conscious of the last days is the Christian. It's the return of Christ. Christ has come, crucified, rose again and is returning.

He is coming again. We don't lose sight of this as Christians. 2 Thessalonians, in a similar attack on the wicked, Paul writes to that little church. He says, and to give you, concerning the return of Christ, to give you who are troubled, rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power. When he comes in that day to be glorified in his saints and to be admired among all those who believe because our testimony among you was believed. You see, this man took beat downs and many other types of sufferings, hunger, cold.

You know, it's winter time, you know, you get a chill and you say, oh, I hate winter. Well, imagine if you had no defense against it, you just had to suffer. Well, these are the kind of things Paul put up with because he saw Christ, he knew him. He knew that regardless of what happened to him, it did not undo who Christ was. Truth meant everything to him. So you come to church near Christmas time. True Christians want truth. That's what they want. To hunger and thirst for righteousness is to want the truth that falls from heaven.

No matter what the platform is from scripture, whether it is concerning the virgin birth, a judgment against the unscrupulous, the slaying of a giant, the beginning of creation, whatever it is, the Christian will receive it because the Christian knows whose hand it comes from. And that is what is essential. From where does this water come? Before I put my lips on it, where does it come from? Is it safe to drink in? Several years ago on an outreach trip to Alaska, we went up way up in the mountains and there's just, you know, snow everywhere and the streams are everywhere. And I wanted to just, there's this one stream running and I was going to go and scoop up some nice cold water and drink it and the local yokel said, don't do it. They had a thing that, I probably said this enough so those of you who've heard this before do like this until I'm finished and you won't be burdened. But he said they had a thing at the time and maybe they still do called beaver fever.

There were parasites in the water because of the wildlife. And if you drank the water and you weren't sure if that water was contaminated or not, you would be sick for a very long time. And so it does matter what we put to our lips, what we take in, what we consume. That's what our communion table says.

Our communion table says it does matter what goes inside of us. And for us it is Christ. We read a verse like that from Thessalonians and we hear the righteous cheer it on.

Yes, God will execute justice. And then the Spirit of God says, but what are you doing to lessen the amount of souls going to hell? What are you doing? Ask yourself, what are you doing for the kingdom?

That's what it means. Doing work for the kingdom does not mean well I'm going to go paint in heaven. You may paint here on earth for the kingdom.

We have a men's maintenance ministry that is just extraordinary. Folks come in, you don't even know the work they've done. They do it for the king.

They do it because they believe that this is his house to be used by him. And in that process, those who believe can be made stronger and those who don't believe can be saved. And the ones that are made stronger in Christ will pray to Christ, will turn their attention, will shoot cannons of prayer against the work of the devil and pray for lost souls. And when you pray, I hope you pray for lost souls with some degree of intensity. There's nothing casual about praying for lost souls. Oh yeah, and God, can you save Jack or whatever their name may be?

Can't you just save them? It doesn't do justice to the war that we fight. We pray with an intensity on such intense issues. Well, at the fall of Jerusalem, which isn't far from the, well it's about maybe 25 years, I could give or take from the time that James wrote this letter, Jerusalem will fall. And the rich will become, they will be tortured, they will be abused, they will lose all their wealth, they will be killed. Romans had great problems when they sacked Jerusalem.

One of them was getting rid of the dead bodies that were everywhere. Many of them killed by Jews against Jews and Romans against Jews also. So, Mark's Gospel, chapter 8, verse 36, For what will it profit if a man gains the whole world and loses his soul?

That's what James is saying. You're rich, so what if you go to hell? Verse 4, Indeed the wages of the labourers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cities of the reapers, have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.

Well, now he turns his attention to the exploitation of the workforce. Well, if you're a business owner, that matters to you as a Christian. You certainly do not want to abuse your workers. And many Christian employers do not abuse their workers. They do the right thing.

Days pay for a day's work and they follow the agreement. It is shameful when Christian workers are the problem and it is too common to find Christians be more of a bean head than unbelievers. Sorry, I was just envisioning trying to pick out what bean. Is it a navy bean?

Is it a kidney bean? Why? If I'm talking to you, it's the Holy Spirit talking through me, why? Why are you more of a problem in the workplace than the believer? Why can't you work hard?

Why, why, why? The mowers and the reapers are selected as representatives of the hired labourers that the rich were using to get rich. Remember we started off talking about the Industrial Revolution when machinery was placing, you know, human power, human craftsmanship and work. And of course they became abusive, they wouldn't pay on time, they paid so little it was ridiculous. Well anyway, Deuteronomy 24.15, the Jews would have known this. Each day you shall give him his wages and not let the sun go down on it, for he is poor and has set his heart on it, lest he cry out against you to Yahweh and it be a sin to you. So when James says indeed, verse 4, the wages of the labourers who mowed your fields which you kept back by fraud, cry out. And so he is saying, you know this is in our scripture.

You have it in our society, we have an agreement usually every two weeks, sometimes once a month or every week, this payday. And if the employer is holding back through dishonesty, then of course he is sinning. Well that's what they were doing in the days of James. And he says they cry out. And the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth as the blood of Abel cried out.

Jeremiah brings it up also many years after the giving of the law in Deuteronomy. He says, woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness and his chambers by injustice, who uses his neighbour's service without wages and gives him nothing for his work. Maybe you're not rich but you've hired a contractor and you're too slow paying up. That's uncalled for.

Once the work is done, pay up. If there's still, of course, you know, well that's a punch list here he's got to address, well that's another matter. This word Sabaoth here, it's an untranslated word. Why did not the translators translate? It means host or the multitudes. Why did not the translators just simply translate it? To irritate us, that's why. The only reason why they get to that word and say, no, don't translate that one.

What is that? That's the needle in the haystack. Anyway, Malachi, again dealing with this subject. I will come near you for judgment.

I will be a swift witness against those who exploit wage earners because they did not fear me, the Lord of hosts. So this is again where James finds scripture to support his point. He is drawing it from the Bible, verse 5. Now let me pause here for a moment and say because the current culture is so hostile towards Jesus, that is not our cue to become timid in front of them concerning Jesus.

It's quite the other way around. We are to be very clear that we adore the Lord, we love to talk about him, we disagree with those who disagree with them, all of them. And I was thinking as we were singing how hesitant Christians have become for fear of what? It doesn't matter what it is you're afraid of, it's no past to be quiet. The only reason why we are to be quiet in the face of the unbeliever is if the Holy Spirit says just be still. But unless he says that, and most of the time he does not. I mean if they can talk about their filth, we can talk about righteousness.

And so if there are any of you here in the workplace and you feel a little nervous about, I better not ring in on this, I say ring in. Why should Satan be the only one with a microphone? Why does he get to tell his side of the story and Christians shiver over in the corner because they're afraid they won't be liked anymore?

That's the problem when we begin to fear men and not God. Well, you have lived on earth in pleasure and luxury. Now he's not talking to me, but he's... Compared to many people in the world, I have lived in pleasure and luxury. You have lived on the earth in pleasure and luxury, you have fattened your hearts as in the day of slaughter. So from an injustice now, he goes to self-indulgence.

You're corrupt, holding back pay from those you're supposed to pay up, you little stingy cheapo. And now he says, and now you just thought the high life, the life of the rich and famous, and you just don't care whose head you step on to maintain this lifestyle or to get it. And those who live for fun are the devil's playground. You live for thrills and sensations, you are his playground, and that's not all.

He doesn't play fairly. You're going to get shot in the back by him. You're going to get hit out of bounds. You're going to get a bean ball by him.

So be careful. Their worship of pleasure would become slavery then as it is today. The rich man in Jesus' parable, who built all of his silos, was only concerned about his wealth, his achievements, what he was going to do. I will, I will. He would have been right at home with these people that James is rebuking. He says, you have fattened your hearts.

The heart here is the seat of appetites and passions. You just do whatever you want. That's why some rich, you know, celebrities and rich folks, you ever notice some of the dumb names they stick on their kids? Some of you remember Moon Zapper? I mean, what was that?

You know, we're going to name you Moon. They just feel like because they've got some degree of fame and wealth that they can do whatever they want to do. They can do the ridiculous.

And we're seeing it happen to this very day. They fatten their hearts on their own passions. They don't think. They just feel. Again, Matthew 6 21, for where your treasure is there your heart will be also.

If you fattened your heart towards those things that give you a thrill and not the truth, then you're going to be on the wrong side of judgment. He says, as in the day of slaughter. So here it is, the picture that he paints. They're still grazing out in the field and within minutes they're going to be at the slaughterhouse. But they're still fattening themselves up oblivious to the slaughter that awaits them. This is an excellent metaphor that James pulls out.

As in the day of slaughter, there you are, fattening your little heart, heading off to hell plump. The great prophet Isaiah warned, and he wanted retribution. I mean, I don't know how many of you are familiar with Jeremiah.

Maybe when you read his prophecies you get too bogged down by some of the dollar prophecies to us because they deal with issues that were current events to him but not for us. But if you're not familiar, you're missing out. Listen to what he says. He says, but you, O Yahweh, know me. You have seen me and you have tested my heart toward you. Pull them out like sheep for the slaughter and prepare them for the day of slaughter. Shoot them, Lord, not me. I'm righteous.

I'm your child. They are crooks. Of course, Paul comes along and he says, except for these chains, I wish you were all like me. Instead of Paul saying, well, you put me in chains, shoot him, Lord.

Forget them. New Testament approach is different. So James is not hoping to rush to judgment. He's simply telling them what's coming.

That should be enough. Because when Peter said you are poisoned by bitterness and bound in iniquity, Simon said, whoa, he stopped in his tracks and he said, pray for me. We're not told the outcome.

We're not told the outcome of so many people who are wicked that are put under conviction and then sort of just go out of our lives and we don't know whatever happens to them after that, whether they truly repented or was it just a flash in the pan word of fear. Well, verse 6, you have condemned, you have murdered the just. He does not resist you. The just cannot resist you. You've overpowered him. You've got all the controls. That's why you wanted them.

Well, that's why you are who you are. You've got the power. He has nothing and so you bully, you become a tyrant. The golden rule of those who are on this level of wealth and have this kind of heart is that they make the rules that they don't live by. They're for the little people. Rules are not for people of this class. This is why the revolutions have been spawned from being under such authority.

I'm almost done. So figuratively he uses the word you've murdered. Well, they worked people to death. Today we have trade unions in OSHA that do help in some of these areas. Some trade unions are of course abusive and some are not. I once belonged to a union and it was I thought a very good union.

They were serious about making sure that those who employed us got their money's worth and it was an honor to work in that union yet, but there were other unions though. They were scoundrels and crooks of thugs. Well anyway, Deuteronomy 8 verses 11, 17 and 18. Beware that you do not forget Yahweh. Then you may say in your heart, My power and my might, might of my hand have gained me this wealth. You shall remember Yahweh your God for it is He who gives you power to get wealth. And so money cannot buy peace with God.

Obedience, submission, those are the things that buy peace with God. Thanks for joining us today as we took a deeper look into the book of James here on Cross Reference Radio. Cross Reference Radio is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia. We're blessed to bring you God's word with each broadcast. If you'd like more information or want to listen to additional teachings from Pastor Rick, please visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. If you've been blessed by this program, we'd love to hear from you. When you visit the website, simply click on the contact us link at the top of the page and leave us a message. That website again is crossreferenceradio.com. Please join us again next time as we continue our study through the book of James right here on Cross Reference Radio.