James 5:13

NIV: Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise.

The Message: Are you hurting? Pray. Do you feel great? Sing.

This is such good advice from James.  No matter what is going on in our lives, no matter how hard things may be, or how god, he is telling us to turn to God, to give it all to Him.  Pray when times are bad, give Him praise when times are good.  I would actually take it further than that and say we should praise God no matter whether we are going through good times or bad.  As Paul says:

Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 5:16 (NIV)

To be honest, this is not always easy to do.  After all, when a loved one is ill, or something bad has happened, probably the last thing on your mind is giving thanks.  After all, how can you be thankful for illness, death, problems and worries?  But the thing is, when you turn to God, albeit perhaps in anger at everything that is happening in your life or to those around you, you take the focus off yourself and others.  Your eyes are turned towards God and, like David in the Psalms, you end up p[raising God.  Mind you, the praising might come a ling time after the complaints, the moans, the hurt, the anger that you end up throwing at God. 

I always think that when you get so wrapped up in yourself and everything that you are going through, then that is when the devil has a far better chance of having a go at you.  You end up wallowing in self pity and depression, feeling sorry for yourself, being hurt, neglected, abused or whatever.  I'm not saying it is wrong to dwell on the things that are happening, but you need to get your priorities right, your focus right.  I'm also not saying it is easy or that this is something that can be done at the drop of a hat.

God wants us to take everything to Him, the good, the bad and the ugly.  It's no good only turning to God when things are tough, just as it is no use praising God when things are good.  God is the same, yesterday, today and tomorrow.  We can't praise Him one day because everything in the garden is rosy and then ignore Him the next because troubles have come.  If God is worthy of our praise when the sun is shining, why should we think any the less of Him when it rains?

And then there is the matter of prayer.  I have seen in my own life and the lives of my family and friends just how prayer can change things.  I know of one woman who is undergoing chemotherapy and radiotherapy and the medical staff are amazed at how she is doing because the side effects are minimal.  Things have happened in the life of one of my sons that you would have though impossible given the circumstances and can, in my opinion, only have been due to God intervening. 

Prayer is always answered, even though it may not be answered when we want or in the way we want.  My husband, for instance, has been ill with severe depression and anxiety for a number of years now, and there is still no sign of healing but I am having to trust God for this every day. 

So James and Paul, and the other apostles, are telling each and every one of us to take everything to God in prayer and praise, no matter what is happening around us, because when we turn to God, we take our eyes off the things of this world and place them firmly on Him. What better place is there to be than there?

James 5:12

NIV: Above all, my brothers, do not swear— not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. Let your Yes be yes, and your No, no, or you will be condemned.

The Message: Above all, my brothers, do not swear— not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. Let your Yes be yes, and your No, no, or you will be condemned.

Just take a walk down any street, go to the shopping precinct, sit on the bus, or just listen to what is going on around you.  I am always shocked by the language I hear.  I know I shouldn't be but when I hear young children aged 10 or so, teenagers and others, saying "f*** this, f*** off," and all sorts, I find it so upsetting.  I don't break down in tears or anything, but inside, I am grieved.  Why cannot people use their minds and think of a decent word to use instead of coming up with a profanity every other word or sentence?  What sort of parent uses language like that in front of their children so they think it is commonplace?

Then there is the blasphemy, when they take the name of God in vain, when they use Jesus Christ as a swear word.  Do they not realise what they are doing?  I know some don't even know they have said anything wrong, it is so much of a habit that they use  these words without thinking.  You can just picture the devil laughing his socks off every time someone blasphemes or uses profanity. 

And note how James starts off this verse, with the words "above all".  In other words, this is really important and needs to be remembered above everything else as otherwise, says James, "you will be condemned. "  Jesus said exactly the same thing:

Matthew 12: 36-37 But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken.   For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.

By your words you will be acquitted, by your words you will be condemned.  By my words, I will be acquitted, by my words I will be condemned.  Scary stuff indeed and this is all hidden away in the bible, the sort of verse that you are liable to skim read as you nod your head and say "yeh, right, of course, no swearing" and pass quickly on to a verse that seems more important, more relevant.

But the thing is, nothing is in the bible without a reason.  If you genuinely believe the bible is God breathed, written by men but inspired by the Holy Spirit, every single word in the bible has meaning and relevance.  Every.  Single.  Word.  Even all the so and so begat such and such verses.  If James took the trouble to tell us that, above all, we should not swear, and Jesus made sure he warned us what would happen if we used words idly, without thinking, then don't you think we need to pay attention and heed these words?

Men (and women) swear to emphasise a point, to show how serious they are, how annoyed they are or to stress how honest and truthful they are and that you can trust them absolutely.  Swearing, or using an oath, shows they mean business.  After all, why else when you are in court do you have to swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing else, so help you God?  So does this mean that when they don't use an oath or swear, they could be lying?  So when they say "For God's sake..." they are being totally honest and up front, and when they don't , well, your guess is as good as mine whether their word can be trusted?

But James is not talking about just using bad language here, coarse language, double entendres and worse.  No, he is talking about the whole culture of using the name of God as an affirmation, a witness to what you were about to do.  As John MacArthur puts it:

Well the oath, the word "oath" in the Hebrew is the word shebuah, it means "to swear." The Greeks used the word horkos which means to bind or strengthen. In other words, you strengthen your word by swearing by some higher authority. And an oath or swearing had three parts. It was a testing to the truth, calling for God to witness and, thirdly, invoking God's punishment if you violated your word. To say "I swear to God" meant I want you to know I'm telling the truth, I want God to witness I'm telling the truth and I want God to punish me if I'm not telling the truth. Very serious. You're invoking the curse of God on you if you lie in an effort to try to convince somebody that you're really telling the truth.

And in those days when there weren't contracts and there weren't the binding kinds of authoritative documents and court rooms to enforce them and all of that like there are today, it was very important that people be trusted. And if a person said, "Look, I promise you I will hold your money." And the guy said, "Boy, I hope you do it, I want you to swear to do it." "I swear by God, may God strike me dead if I don't." That was a way in which you bound your conscience to do what you were supposed to do. Now believe me, it was a solemn thing to call God to witness and invoke the judgment of God on you if you defaulted.

Pasted from <http://www.gty.org/Resources/Sermons/59-32>

There are times when we are called upon to swear an oath, when we take the witness stand in court, when we swear an affidavit, when we get married in church and so on.  But the oaths James is talking about are when you say something along the lines of "I swear by my mother's grave...by the live s of my children... and so on as well as the ones where we swear by God. 

 The NASB translates James 5:12 as:

But above all, my brethren, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath; but your yes is to be yes, and your no, no, so that you may not fall under judgment.

Going into this even further, the condemnation, the judgment James mentions is not the judgment of Christians.  Far from it.   The word "judgement" here comes from the Greek krisis which means:

1. a separating, sundering, separation
1. a trial, contest

2. selection
3. judgment
1. opinion or decision given concerning anything
1. esp. concerning justice and injustice, right or wrong
2. sentence of condemnation, damnatory judgment, condemnation and punishment

4. the college of judges (a tribunal of seven men in the several cities of Palestine; as distinguished from the Sanhedrin, which had its seat at Jerusalem)
5. right, justice

It is apparently never used to describe the judgment of believers, but is the decision of a judge when he passes sentence.  So in this context, it effectively means the judgement of non believers and the condemnation they will face on the Last Day.  In other words, being thrown into the lake of burning fire along with satan and his minions. 

When you take the name of God in vain, you are risking eternal damnation, suffering the torments of hell for eternity.  James is actually writing to the church about this though, because this is all about getting your heart and your life right with God.  When we open our mouths, we reveal what is in our hearts by the words we speak.  Do we speak words of love, of God's grace, tell others of His forgiveness and compassion, His grace and mercy, show our faith by the things we do and say,  or do we take His name in vain, treat everyone with contempt, disregard their feelings and concentrate on our own, because we "have a right to be happy", behave just as many in the world behave,  having no regard for anyone else and taking God's name in vain all the time?   Do our lives demonstrate our faith and trust in God, in Jesus, in the Holy Spirit?  Do our works provide the outward evidence of our inner faith?

Revelation 21: 6-8 He said to me: It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life.  He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son.  But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practise magic arts, the idolaters and all liars— their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulphur. This is the second death.

Judgement is coming and coming soon.  Do you want to be one of those who overcome all that is in the world, whom God will claim as a son, or one of those who gain a place in the lake of burning sulphur?  The choice is yours.

James 5:10-11

NIV: Brothers, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. As you know, we consider blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job's perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy.

The Message: Take the old prophets as your mentors. They put up with anything, went through everything, and never once quit, all the time honouring God. What a gift life is to those who stay the course! You've heard, of course, of Job's staying power, and you know how God brought it all together for him at the end. That's because God cares, cares right down to the last detail.

There are numerous examples in the bible of prophets who suffered for their faith and trust in God.  In the Old Testament you have (according to Wikipedia):

•  Isaiah, who was allegedly sawn in two (definitely not nice) by Manasseh;
• Jeremiah who was stoned to death;
• Ezekiel who was martyred;
• Amos, tortured by Amaziah and then killed by Amaziah's son;
• Zechariah, killed by Joash.

I am sure there are others too who were killed for their faith.  In addition to those old testament prophets, you also have:

• John the Baptist, who was beheaded;
• Stephen, the first Christian martyr; and
•  all the apostles (except Judas and John) who were killed for their faith.

But more Christians have been killed for their faith in the last century than at any other time in the two thousand years since Jesus' death and resurrection.  What does that tell you about man, and about how the devil must fear God? 

You would think that after two thousand years, a faith might be dying out, that people would forget, turn to other faiths, other religions, other ways of life.  But apparently something like one third of the entire world believe in Jesus and Christianity is growing at an amazing rate.  In India, Pakistan, Iran, North Korea, Eritrea, Nigeria, and other countries, places where the church is under attack, suffering persecution, the church is growing in leaps and bounds.  Just compare that to here in the west with declining church numbers.

But persecution is coming here too.  Here in the UK earlier this week, there was a case in the High Court where a married couple sought to have the local council decision to refuse to allow them to be foster parents overturned.  The couple had told the council that as bible believing Christians, they were unable to promote homosexuality to children in their care.  The Equality and Human Rights Commission made a submission to the court advising that children risked being infected with Christian moral beliefs.  The judges took this into consideration and in their summary, stated that  Christian beliefs on sexual ethics may be inimical (i.e. harmful) to children.  Further details can be found here.

I find this absolutely unbelievable when our entire legal system is based on Christian morals and beliefs and is a scary foretaste of what is potentially to come here in the UK.

Back in the days of James, Christians were facing the lion's den, stoning, beatings, imprisonment, harassment.  There were apparently around 2,000 Christians who dies as a result of Jewish persecution but this pales into insignificance when compared to the persecution by the Romans.  But all the deaths in past years are nothing compared to the millions who have been killed in the last century.  If anything, persecution is getting worse.

So James is telling the early Christians, and us, to have patience, to look at the example of those who have gone before us and learn from their attitude, their behaviour.  Their focus was on God, first and foremost, no matter what was happening to them.  Just look at Isaiah who went naked for three years in obedience to God, or Hosea who was instructed to marry a prostitute .  Then there was Jeremiah who was so grieved at the state of Israel and what was going to happen that he became known as the weeping prophet.  But each one of them obeyed God, just as we are instructed to do. 

It is a case of having a close walk with God, of getting our hearts right with Him so that we face each day fully clothed ion the armour of god, ready to face whatever may be thrown at us, and to stand strong and upright in the strength and power of God.  Not in our own strength, but in God's power and might, using His word, His armour, and calling on the name of Jesus , for greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world.