The Book of James

Hey, this is Jim Graham from the Masculine Journey Podcast, where we explore relationship instead of religion every week. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network.

This is the Truth Network. Hey all you awesome Truth Talk listeners, you're going to hear a great exchange next with Dr. Sam Horn, professor at Bob Jones University Seminary, pastor and man of God. He and I are talking head-to-head, toe-to-toe about one of the most powerful books in the New Testament that almost did make the canon, the Book of James.

So stay tuned, be encouraged. This is from an earlier live show I did this week, guest hosting for my friend Steve Noble on his national broadcast, the Steve Noble Show. It's full frontal attack on the Book of James coming at you next, right here on Truth Talk. The Book of James is front and center today, and we have an awesome man of God who is going to guide us through.

He is our navigator, and by the way, he has two things in common with the Book of James and the author of the Book of James, so we're going to enjoy talking to him right here, right now. I'm waving to all my Instagram and Facebook friends who are watching me, because I've got attacked by poison oak and my face is swollen, and I'm so glad that I am on the radio right now, because I indeed have a face for radio right now. So thank you for all your prayers, God bless you, and a lot of folks that on those social media channels are... they just said, Stu, you should put a warning that your face is gonna be on here. Okay, again, stop, Brad, stop, that ain't right. I went over to see my dad today, he said, put a mask on! Like Pops! I'm 30 feet away!

He's like, I don't want to look at that mug with all that swollenness. So anyway, with me is a man of God, an esteemed professor at Bob Jones University, their wonderful seminary. They are the partners here on Theology Thursday, and he's also a pastor in local church, and he's also been a mentor to me all these years! We finally got a chance to hang out on the radio! Dr. Sam Horn, God bless you, sir. Hey, Stu, God bless you too, and I wish I could see your face. I think I would pay money to see that.

I don't know if you would enjoy that experience. I was laughing as you were describing it, but what a blessing to be on the air with you, and what a joy. I think back to the many years we've had together, and just the way God's worked our paths over the years, where we've crossed and served together, and things God's taught us together. I remember early on in our friendship, we were studying and talking and memorizing the book of James together, so it's really fitting that all these years later we're together on the air talking about this book. Well, no, it really is, and I really love your passion for teaching the Word of God, both in a pastoral capacity, but also instilling God's Word and teaching God's Word to young people who are equipping them for the ministry right there at Bob Jones University. And Dr. Horn, when you bring up the book of James, man, it evokes all kinds of emotions from people, and there's all kinds of controversy, but there's a lot of rubber meets the road. It's five chapters, and we're honored to be visiting with you today to help us literally flesh that out. If you have a question about the book of James, Dr. Horn is our guest all hour long. Call this number, 866-34-TRUTH.

Toll-free, 866-348-7884. Maybe there's a question about the healing part in chapter five, maybe the question about faith without works is dead, hearing the Word, not just doing the Word, not just hearing it. It's fraught with all kinds of rich minerals we're going to mine today. Dr. Horn, what is it you have in common with the author of James and the book of James? Well, you know, I don't know that I have a lot in common with James, but I sure have a lot in common with his readers. And I pastor church.

That's really my heart, my soul, actually. I love pastoring God's people. And I began thinking about five or six months ago, as we were getting into the new year, just kind of thinking kind of where we are as a culture, where we are as a church, our own little church, kind of what's going on in our body. Where would we spend time for about four or five months in the Word of God, where our hearts could be encouraged, our vision could be reset, and our focus could be redirected. And I landed on the book of James. And, you know, you asked what I have in common, I have a lot in common with the readers.

But I'm super impressed with James. The book, let me just give you a couple of things that really stood out to me. It's probably the earliest book in the New Testament, written somewhere 45 to 49 AD. So really, we're talking about 15 years after the events of the life of Christ, the birth of Christ, obviously, right around the beginning of the first century, his death, his resurrection, somewhere between 30 and 33 AD, which puts us right at 15 years into the life of the church, right after the events of Pentecost. And so we're talking about one of the first letters in our New Testament to a new church that was young. It was forming up how it was going to live out its faith. And James writes to this church. And then it was written by a pastor. James wasn't just writing as a theologian, he was writing as a pastor. And what stood out to me is that he didn't always believe in Jesus. I mean, we know from history that he was one of the Lord's brothers. In fact, he was the next brother after Jesus. So Jesus had four brothers and at least two sisters, and so a family of seven, at least counting Mary and Joseph.

And here's James, the oldest brother. And for Jesus' entire life, James refused to believe the claims that Jesus was making about his true identity. And after the resurrection, he appeared to James and James became a full-on believer. In fact, he was so respected by the early church that he became the first pastor of the first church of the followers of Jesus Christ. So he knew what it was like to be someone who was skeptical and someone who rejected the claims, and then to become a convert.

He knew exactly what the readers were facing. And then he loads up his book with theology. I mean, he's literally going to talk to them about the underpinnings of their faith. What does it look like to have a faith that is real, a faith that goes way beyond just what you say and what you claim?

What kind of faith is actually going to be a difference-making kind of faith in a world full of skeptics? And so James is going to talk that way. And that's why the book is so practical, because it meets us where we are.

I mean, that's the kind of world we live in. You know, we are a group of people who have embraced claims about Jesus Christ, James' older brother, and we had to struggle to come to grips with who Jesus is. That he's not just someone we add into our life, he's really the Lord of our life. And then not just just those claims for ourselves, but we live in a world that mocks us.

They just completely mock us. So James is coming, and he's going to really hit us hard with how to make our faith real. We're talking about this rich book of the Bible right now with an old friend of mine.

He just happened to be on the calendar, and Steve happened to be desperate for just a terrible guest host, a guy who's never done this before. And I walk up, he says, Stu, you're on the air with Sam Horne, who's really one of my longtime friends, loves Jesus, he's mentored me, him and Beth his awesome kids, and he's a professor at the seminary at Bob Jones University, our wonderful partner on Theology Thursday, also pastors of church in the Greenville, South Carolina area, the upstate of South Carolina. Dr. Horne, this book of James, man, I tell you, the intro was perfect.

The song Happy. We need to be happy that God has given us this book. And here's the question I want to ask you. Point blank, as we talk about James, if you have a question, by the way, for Dr. Horne about this book, if anything's ever puzzled you about James, or maybe one of the tough texts in the book that you've struggled with, we'd love to talk to you.

The toll-free number is 866-34-TRUTH, 866-348-7884. Dr. Horne, how could someone, a la James, who you told us a little bit about his background, grow up, live so close in proximity in family, in life with Jesus Christ, the Lord of the universe, the Creator? How could a guy grow up with Jesus and yet never really follow him until after the resurrection?

How could we? We're in the... a lot of folks here in my voice right now, in your voice, are listening in the Bible Belt. We've got churches in every corner, but we have thousands of church-going people that have never been transformed by Jesus. They're exposed to it, they're around it, like James was around Jesus, but they've never truly followed him.

How can that be, Doc? You know, that's an amazing question, Stu, and it's a great question, because actually that's exactly where a lot of people are. You know, we've grown up in church, many people, we hear the same Bible, we know all the stories, and yet we walk away, you know, we start questioning it, and then, you know, when we're 18, 19, 20, we walk away and we never come back. And that isn't just, you know, what happens out, you know, in a place where the gospel isn't. That actually happens in a lot of Christian homes, where you can have kids growing up in a Christian home, they even go to a Christian school, they're in Sunday school, they're in good churches, they're part of youth groups, they've heard everything about Jesus just like James had heard everything about Jesus, and he saw everything about Jesus.

And the answer that I come back to is what Paul talked about in Ephesians 2, when he talks about how we really are as people with a fallen nature. He says we're dead in our trespasses and sins, and later on he's going to describe us as blind. And so when we see and hear truth about Jesus, until God resolves our deadness problem, and until God resolves our blindness problem, we're going to be just like James. And God had to do a work in James, and so what happened is Jesus Christ appeared to James, and he quickened his heart, and he opened his eyes, and James believed. And that's exactly what James is going to talk about in this book. He's going to talk about the fact that it's the Word of God that's implanted in you that brings forth life. That's what he talks about in chapter 1, verse 18, and in verse 19, when he says, of his own will, he brought us forth by the Word of Truth, that we would be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

So everyone that's a Christian, in many ways, is a modern-day James. And so as we talk about this, that's really how I would answer that question. It's really a great question. Wow. Dr. Horan, we live in a world that's especially the younger generations, the Millennials and the X-Gen, Z-Gen, all the whatever initial, just throw it in there, but they're looking for something that's real.

They're looking, they're tired of hearing our words, they're looking for action. And so many people have called the book of James the shoe leather of the Christian faith. Talk about, will you, how the book of James just, there's this very sense to which it's just this active book from chapter 1 all the way through chapter 5? You know, it's interesting, because James starts off by describing who he's writing to, and he says that they are the 12 tribes who have been scattered. And he's talking about the fact that these are believers in the Messiah. His brother was the Messiah. And James is saying, there's a bunch of people who have come to believe the truth about Jesus, he actually is the Messiah, and they've been scattered. And you know, from reading the book of Acts in chapter 8, there was this massive persecution that drove these early believers all over the ancient world, and they found themselves having to be true to Jesus in a culture that had no idea who he was.

He absolutely made zero sense to the people they were living around. So when they started talking about Jesus, and about being the Messiah, and all of these things, if they were talking to other Jews in those cities, and they started talking about the crucifixion, actually, it was a horrific offense. And then if they started talking to their non-Jew neighbors about Jesus, and they started talking about this death and resurrection, it was an absolute scandal.

It was a mockery. So here they are, and they're out in pagan darkness, or in religious darkness, in Jewish darkness, or in pagan darkness, and they have this faith. And James says, you have to live that faith out in such a way that it is going to rescue people from that darkness.

In other words, you have to have a living faith for a dying world. And that's why the book of James is so hard-hitting, because it really doesn't let us sit and just enjoy the truth. You know, sometimes we go to church, and we hear these great messages, and we walk away, and we're like, man, our pastor knocked it out of the park today. That was awesome.

I want more of that. And we come back the next Sunday, and we get this nugget, and we fill up our journal, and man, our study Bible is just highlighted, and we're getting all of this truth. And James is saying, now wait a minute, you need to do something with that truth. In other words, he's not going to let you sit and enjoy what you got on Sunday morning. He's going to say, now you need to take that out to the deepest, darkest places in the kingdom of darkness, and you need to live it in such a way that the gospel becomes credible and attractive to people who desperately need it.

Hmm, wow. So the rubber really does meet the road, and he uses a very interesting word, because you know, if you're a believer in our modern day, the word religion is kind of a bad word. It's about relationship, not religion, but James in chapter 1, Dr. Horne, talks about what pure or true religion is. So we want you to help us de-fang that dilemma for people.

When we come back, we've got to take a quick break. Our special guest is Dr. Sam Horne. If ever there was a book in the Bible that will challenge you and stretch you and encourage you, especially in your walk with Christ, I'm Stu Epperson on The Steve Noble Show, guest hosting for my good pal Steve, with another good pal going way back, one of my mentors in the faith, honored to be the guest host the day that he's on on this Theology Thursday. He is Dr. Sam Horne, and we're talking with him about the book of James. He's also a professor at Bob Jones University, our Theology Thursday partner. They have a great college, they have a great university, a great seminary, and some brilliant, wonderful things are happening.

And you know, Psalm 1 says the blessed man is the one who delights in God's Word and doesn't sit at the feet of the ungodly. So moms and dads, you know, give it some thought to legitimately send your kid to a place like Bob Jones University, where they're going to get an amazing education, they're going to get a great job out of school, but most importantly, they're going to get a brilliant Christian worldview sitting at the feet of people like Dr. Sam Horne, who's talking with us right now about the book of James. So I set you up going in the break, Dr. Horne, with this whole notion of what, you know, James talks about pure religion.

So I want you to get into that specifically. Before you do, could you give us a brief overview of the book, just like a 5,000-foot view for folks that have never studied James, never heard it taught, never even read the five chapters? You can read it in 20, 20, 25 minutes. What's going on in this book in a general sense, and then hone in on this idea of pure religion? Well, thanks to a hundred and eight verses. That's what James wrote, and I could describe it this way. It's talking about two wisdoms, two ways, and two alliances. So James is going to really be about how you live out your life, and where you go to get the wisdom that you need to navigate whatever life throws at you in a way that pleases God. So it doesn't matter if it's a trial, or a temptation, or whether you're trying to figure out, you know, I'm running out of resources, I'm occupying the place of the poor, or I've got all the temptations that come because I've got such an amount of resources.

It doesn't matter what's going on in your life. James says you're going to operate with a wisdom system. And he talks about two kinds of wisdom. You get wisdom from above, wisdom that comes down from God, or you operate with the operating system of whatever wisdom happens to be going on around you in the world.

So for example, in the Old Testament, you just mentioned Psalm 1. Psalm 1 actually describes this, right? Whatever wisdom you choose leads you to a way of life.

So two wisdoms lead to two ways. And so in Psalm 1, you meet a guy, and he's blessed. And the reason he's blessed is because he has rejected all the wisdom that comes from beneath, from the world. He doesn't stand in the way of sinners, he doesn't walk according to the counsel of the ungodly, and he doesn't sit in the seat of the scorner. He rejects the people who mock at God, who scorn at God's word, and then he organizes his life around a wisdom that came down from God. God gave a wisdom, and that wisdom, in verse 2 of Psalm 1, is what he delights in. He delights in the law of the Lord. Way back in Deuteronomy chapter 4, Moses said about that law of the Lord, this book is your wisdom. So James is going to talk about a wisdom that comes down from God, which is the Scripture, and all kinds of competing wisdoms that the world has to offer, and a believer has to choose which set of wisdom he's going to use to navigate life.

And that's the way that he takes. So James talks about two wisdoms and two ways, and they are going to lead you into two positions. You're either going to be a friend of God, or you're going to be a friend of the world. And James introduces you in the book to five of God's friends. He introduces you in chapter 2 to Abraham, he introduces you to Rahab the harlot, and then in chapter 5 he introduces you to three more friends. He introduces you to the prophets, he introduces you to Job, and he introduces you to Elijah. So you have five friends of God, and they are people who in different times, under different circumstances, through different pressures, chose the wisdom that came down from above, and it shaped the way they live. And so the book of James is actually written to people who are trying to figure out which wisdom they're going to adopt. And James is worried that under pressure, they're actually debating whether or not they should stay with the wisdom they got from God that brought them to salvation, or they should start leaning a little bit on the wisdom that seems to be working so well for everybody else around them. And that's really the point, and that's why in chapter 4, he comes so hard at them, and he says, now if you're a friend of the world, you're a spiritual adulterer. That's like strong, strong talk in a short letter to people that are all over the first century world.

I mean, James is coming right at him. Remember I said he's not gonna let you sit in a pew and be happy with all this truth? He's gonna say, let's see what's really coming out of your life. Let's see what comes out of your mouth.

You say you're a friend of God, but when you open up your mouth, a lot of what comes out of your mouth sounds just like what comes out of the mouth of the enemies of God. Hmm, that is something. That is so rich. What happens when a rich man comes in and a poor man comes in? You're not very different than the pagans around you and the way you treat that rich man and the way you treat that poor man.

Wow. So James is going hard at what a living faith actually looks like, and then he's going to make this amazing statement. He's going to say, the thing that is going to make your faith shine in the dark place is a trial. When God brings a trial into your life, it is going to cause your faith to grow in a way that makes it dynamic and vibrant and real, and it's going to shine in a way that is going to draw everybody to it. Hmm, so rich. And I tell you, it's interesting, if the book of James, if the Bible was a map of the United States, the book of James would be the state of Missouri.

The show me state, right? That's right. If you go to the end of the book, he says this, my brothers, if any of you wander from the truth and someone bring him back, he will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins. In chapter one, he talks about a double-minded man.

This is a very interesting word. He's talking about a Christian who has two minds. In other words, he's thinking along two lines. He's thinking, maybe I'm going to hang with God and His word until it doesn't work.

And when it doesn't seem to work, maybe I should go over and try the wisdom that the world has to offer. And James says there is no room in this world, in the life of a Christian, for that kind of a faith. That kind of a faith is the kind of faith that talks well, but doesn't do. That's not a living faith, that's a dead faith. And if you have that kind of a faith, you need to actually examine yourself to see if your faith is even real. Hmm.

Wow. So we're gonna get to the prayer of faith in the last segment. Grayson, we've got another segment after this one, don't we, real quick, okay? I want to get to that in this great prayer of Elijah, and the other nice thing about having godly men like Dr. Horn who studied the Word of God and have studied both hermeneutics, right, the interpretation of the Bible, biblical, accurate hermeneutics, and they've also studied and taught homiletics. He's also taught people how to bring forth the Word of truth biblically, in a balanced way, in a gracious way, in a way honoring to God's Word. So Dr. Horn, we'll look at that part in the end, but right now, I look at chapter 1, and you've taught on this a lot, enlighten me when I come to this word religion.

Because if you listen, and I get it! I'm one of those people that says, yay, religion doesn't save you, it's relationship! But James says that there's actually a good kind of religion right there at the end of chapter 1, I believe verse 27, he says, pure religion, true religion, from God and the Father, our Father is this.

So will you help me understand how religion could ever be a good thing, according to James? Yeah, so in verse 26 he says, if someone thinks he is religious, and the idea there is that he has aligned up with a belief system, everybody on the planet is religious. You say, man, I have a neighbor that's not religious. No, everybody on the planet is religious, because religion is based on what you believe, and think, and do about God.

So let me give an example. Somebody who says, I don't believe there's a God, actually has a religion, and is religious. His religion is called atheism. He believes there's no God, and he's going to operate accordingly. If he doesn't believe there's a God, and there's no accountability, and there's no judgment, then he's going to do whatever he thinks will work best to help him navigate life.

So that's a religion. If somebody says, you know, I actually think there's a ton of gods, I don't buy the idea that there's just one God, I think there's a bunch of gods, then they're going to act accordingly. Well, what's the God that's going to help me with this problem? And what's the God that's going to help me with that problem? And how do I please those gods? What do I have to do to kind of shape the outcome, so that I get the gods to do what I want? That's called polytheism. And then there's people who actually believe in the one true God. And James is saying, your belief is going to show up in your behavior.

Oh wow. From the very first verse to the final verse of the final chapter of the book of James, there is a call. The same call that's in the entire Bible. The entire Bible. The theme of the Word of God that pulsates from page to page is that scarlet thread of redemption.

That God is calling and is loving the world so much that He has given His only begotten Son, Jesus. Jesus is the star of the Bible, and the book of James closes with this impassioned call that we're gonna get to in just a second. We're gonna look more at James right now with Dr. Sam Horne, professor at Bob Jones University Seminary. Dr. Horne also pastors at the Palmetto Baptist Church in Powdersville, South Carolina, right there in the upstate of South Carolina, right just outside of Greenville. He's also been a friend and mentor to me, so please pray for him for that part of it for many, many decades. Dr. Horne, it's been a treat to visit with you and talk about this wonderful book, this gift, this book of James.

I know, I've just been so delighted to be on the air with you, Stu, and what a blessing. You know, we were talking about pure religion, and we ended the last section by just observing that for James, everybody's religious, and somebody who claims to have faith in Jesus Christ to be the friend of God is actually going to display that in their life, and there's no better way to display that, the beauty and the power of that faith, the living value of that faith, than when it comes under pressure. Pressure is either going to display the truth about our faith, or it's going to reveal that we have a double heart, that we want to be a friend of God with our mouth and a friend of the world with our life. And so James is writing to people who are struggling with that. I mean, they've been scattered by persecution. They've been driven away from everything that's normal. They've had to go and restart their life in a new place.

I mean, just think about what would happen to most of us if in the next eight months we had to completely restart our life. We lost our home, we lost our network, we lost everything, and we had to go to a completely new place because of persecution, and we had to restart, and we were under pressure. That's really the scenario with the people that James is writing to, and many of them were bruised and battered and discouraged, and in their new place they looked around and they saw all of these people, and life seemed to be going really well for them.

And they were tempted to join in in that kind of thinking. And that's why James talks about Elijah at the end of the book. You know, if you think about what he says at the end of the book, he's going to say two things. He said, what does God use when we're under pressure to build our faith? He uses the Word of God, and that's why in chapter 1 he says, receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to deliver you from all of that double-mindedness. But at the end of the book he's going to say, now let me talk to you about the second thing that delivers people.

It's not just the Word of God, it's the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man, and when that prayer is consistently offered, it avails much. And so let's talk about that prayer. That prayer, at the end of chapter 5, actually points us back to 1 Kings chapter 18 and chapter 19, and you remember the story. Elijah comes in front of King Ahab. Ahab married a woman named Jezebel, and Jezebel had come to Israel, and she looked around at this little podunk nation and said, where are your gods? And Ahab's like, we have one. We only have one, and his name is Yahweh. And oh, by the way, his house is in this place called Jerusalem, which is not even in our little part of the country, and he has some priests. And so Jezebel came in and she said, well let me bring the real gods in. And she brings 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of the female goddess Asherah. And these two gods in the ancient world were the gods of rain and fertility, and if you were an agricultural economy, you desperately needed rain and you needed your crops to grow. And so Elijah comes into all of this and he looks at Ahab and he says, Ahab, it's not going to rain until I say so.

And he leaves. And three and a half years later, it hasn't rained. There's been no rain. I mean, people are hurting. The economy is in shambles. The crops have failed year after year, season after season.

People have died of hunger. And here are the people, and they're starting to wonder if Yahweh, our God, isn't going to give us rain, maybe Jezebel's gods will. Because the word Baal is the word that was used in that particular time in Israel's history for the rain god, the god of storm. And so all of these prophets and all of the prophets of the goddess of fertility were teaching the Israelites, there's another way to get rain, there's another way to grow crops. And so three and a half years later, Elijah gathers everybody at the top of a mountain and he looks at everybody and he says to them, you're going to have to make a decision.

You can't keep going between these two gods. You're either going to have to decide that the God of Israel is the true God, and you're going to serve him, or you're going to have to go and abandon him and go down and embrace the deadly gods that Jezebel brought. And the text says the people answered him, not a word.

And then you know the story, right? I mean, he challenges the priests of Baal, and they have this big contest, and after they do their part and there's no rain and Baal doesn't bring any rain, Elijah stands up and he builds his own altar, and then he looks at the entire nation and he lifts up his voice and he prays. And this is what he says, he says, oh Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and I have done all of this at your word. Answer me, oh Lord, that this people may know that you, oh Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back. And then the fire fell, and you know the rest of the story, and when the people saw it, they fell on their faces and they said, the Lord, he is God.

The Lord, he is God. And centuries later, James is writing to a group of people who are under that kind of pressure. We have the God, you know, of the heaven and his son Jesus, and we believed in him, but we don't have any money. We don't have any social standing. We're being persecuted.

The world is going on without us. Maybe we should embrace the counsel of the ungodly. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to stand in the way of sinners.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to embrace the values of these who scoff, because they seem to be doing well. And James is saying, when you do that, you become a friend of the world, and you become a spiritual adulterer. And what brings a spiritual adulterer back?

What happens when you and I start flirting with the world? James says, you need God's Word, and you need effectual, fervent praying. And that's ultimately where we are as a nation, isn't it? I mean, we live in a nation full of Christians who are facing all of that. They're facing all the pressure, they're seeing all the things that are going on in the world. It's the world that seems to be prospering and advancing and winning, and we're wondering, okay, is the biblical worldview the right worldview?

Maybe I ought to send my kid down to the State College, because they seem to be getting better jobs. Maybe I ought to go down, and maybe I ought to not be so involved in church, because that's ultimately going to start hurting my career. And now we're going to have to make those kind of choices. And the book of James gets really in our face and says, if you want to have the kind of religion that God is pleased with, and that's going to make a difference for eternity, then you need to be a friend of God.

You need to be an Abraham, you need to be a Rahab, you need to be like those prophets, you need to be like Job, and you certainly need to be like Elijah. Wow. What an encouraging word with Dr. Sam Horne, professor at Bob Jones University Seminary, also a wonderful pastor in the upstate of South Carolina just outside of Greenville at Palmetto Baptist Church. We've been talking all hour about the book of James. Dr. Horne, we just have about a minute, a minute and a half left.

Producer Grayson and Rachel, awesome team here at the Truth Network, producing the Steve Noble show today. I'm Stu Epperson, it's been an honor to have one of my mentors, a great man of God, Sam Horne, is my special guest today on Theology Thursday, sponsored by Bob Jones University. Dr. Horne, this book ends with a lot of hope, but it also ends with James basically kind of like Jesus at the end of the Gospels. This commission, this great commission, James kind of gives a little bit of a James Commission, calling us to go after people.

A lot of folks listening, maybe they've gotten stuck in their trials, maybe they're battling some stuff, maybe they've walked away from the faith. Can you call us back to God and take us into that final word from James in James chapter 5 as we wrap up? Yeah, you know, Stu, the most valuable and most wonderful, mercy-filled part of James is in chapter 4 verse 6 when it says, he gives more grace. He goes on to say, God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. And you know, if we will just humble ourselves before the Lord, and we will go and call other people to receive the mercy of God before they have the judgment of God in their life, he will give the grace. He is a God of grace, and he loves to give that grace.

Awesome. Maybe he's calling you right now. Turn to the Lord. Repent. Follow the Lord.

Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you right out of James. Dr. Horne, God bless you, man. Thanks for being with us today.

What a treat. Thank you, Stu. God bless.

We've got to have you on again. Google, check out Bob Jones University. Dr. Horne, you can hear his sermons too.

They're all over the web, and what a blessing he's been. Hey, pursue someone today to follow Jesus. Take these words of James seriously. Study it for yourself. Read it, memorize it, meditate on God's Word, and share it with other people. This is the Truth Network.