JAMES 4:9

The Bible says in James 4:9, “Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.” In this part of James we are on the subject of what it takes to stay close to God. Repentance is what it takes to stay close to God. You do not just need to repent to get saved when you put your faith in Christ. You also might need to repent every day in order to stay in fellowship with Christ. You might just be laughing and smiling and having a good time, but in need of repentance of some sin or some sinful attitude. If so, James says that your laughter should be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness. That is what Jesus was talking about when He said in Matthew 5:4, “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.” There are some who are laughing and smiling, but who are not blessed because they are in need of repentance.

You need continued repentance in order to walk in fellowship with God, and you need humility. James 4:10 says, “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.” Pride can be a horrible sin. Proverbs speaks of seven things that the Lord hates, and the first one on the list is pride. You can go through the motions, and you can keep the restrictions and the ceremonies of organized religion when you have a lot of pride; but you cannot draw close to the Lord or walk with Him with conceit, pride, or arrogance. “The proud will not seek after the Lord. God is not in all his thoughts.”

Why is pride so bad? Why does pride keep us from walking in fellowship with the Lord? Those who are proud have nothing to be proud about. Those who are proud are living a deceitful lie. What do sinful men have to be proud about in the presence of a holy God? What do those who deserve so little have to be proud about in the presence of the One who has done so much for them freely and graciously through faith in Christ? What do you have, o vain man, except that which has been given you freely by God? Who therefore deserves the credit or the honor? God resists the proud, but gives grace unto the humble. Do not spend your time trying to lift yourself up. Spend time trying to lift up Jesus. Spend time trying to have the proper opinion of yourself, and then in God’s way and in God’s time He will lift you up.

Resist the devil, draw nigh unto God, and do not be high-minded about yourself. James tells you how to act towards every being small and great, or towards everyone, spiritual or material. In James 4:11 we are told how not to speak about our brothers in Christ. It says, “Speak not evil one of another, brothers. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judges his brother, speaks evil of the law, and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law, but a judge.” Do not speak evil of another brother. Every other person in the world who knows Jesus as Savior is your brother or sister in Christ; and the Bible says, “Speak not evil one of another.”

There are many reasons that we should not speak evil of one another. One reason is because that is the devil’s job. He is the slanderer, the accuser of the brethren. Let us not do the work of the devil by speaking evil of one another. Also, when we speak evil of one another, it will create division and ill will and hard feelings. The Lord wants His believers to be united in one spirit, serving the Lord. He wants us to be a mighty army joining in combat against the spiritual forces of darkness. There is strength in unity, but there is weakness in division. “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

James said some other things regarding why a Christian should not speak evil of his brother or sister in Christ. He said, “He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judges his brother, speaks evil of the law, and judges the law.” It is a terrible thing to judge others. How can those who rely on the forgiveness of their own sins judge others? Jesus said, “Judge not that you be not judged.” When you speak evil of your brother, you speak evil of the law. In other words, you say things about the law that should not be said: you misuse the law. What should the law be used for? It should be used to show you how to act and to show you what to do. It is not to be used by you to evaluate other people. The judge and only the judge has the responsibility to use the law as a means of evaluating the behavior of people. You are not the judge. James 4:12 says, “There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judges another?”

Some Christians say things that they should not say about the lives of other Christians, and some say things that they should not say about their own lives. Concerning the latter the Bible says in James 4:13-15, “Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away. For that you ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.” A person who has the wrong attitude is a person who thinks in terms of this life only. There is the physical and material, but there is also the spiritual. Those who think in terms of the physical and material only, view life from a standpoint that has a serious deficiency. Such people think about and talk about life from the standpoint of where they are going to live, where they are going o work, where they are going to buy and sell, and how much of a profit that they are going to make. It is okay to think about such things and talk about such things, but not to do so exclusively.

In order to avoid falling into such an error, we should always realize two important things: 1. The temporary nature of life. 2. The involvement of God in all things that happen. Concerning the temporary nature of life James said, “For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away.“ Your life will end some day, and my life will end. “It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.” Some people set themselves up for more than one great disaster by not properly recognizing that life is temporary. The people that you love today may not be here tomorrow, and you may not be here either. Therefore, whatever plans you have made for next week or next year may never come to pass because the day of your demise may come before you expect. Wise is the person who has planned for the next life by turning from sin and finding forgiveness in Jesus Christ.

Even if you are still here next year, your plans may not come to fruition because God is involved in all things, and nothing happens unless God permits it to happen. Anyone who thinks that things happen simply because of their own plans and efforts is not very wise. God is intimately involved in all things. “In Him we live and move and have our being.” According to Jesus, “The very hairs of your head are numbered.” He is the All-powerful, all-knowing, all-controlling One. That is one of the reasons that we should be thankful for all things. There is a purpose to all things. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, “He hath made everything beautiful in his time.” We are totally dependent upon the will of God: the perfect will of God and the permissive will of God. All things emanate from God. He has created all things and He upholds all things. If you are a wise person, then you will always qualify every plan and every purpose that you have with the statement, “If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.” If the Lord will, we shall continue to live in this city. If the Lord will, we shall stay in His word and help to present its wonderful contents to others. If the Lord will, we shall pay our bills and have a little left over to give and to save for the future. If the Lord will, our children shall become educated and use their education to help find their way in this life in service to the Lord. Those who constantly talk about their life and their plans for the future and never mention the Lord or the will of the Lord are violating this important Biblical principle that James reminded us of. James said of such people who fail to mention the Lord’s will in James 4:16, “But now you rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil.”

In James 4:17 the Bible says, “Therefore to him that knows to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” Up to this point the book of James has really turned the heat up on believers in Jesus. We have a very high standard, and there is no excuse for failure. Everything that we say should be the right thing, whether we say it about God or about man. Everything that we do should be the right thing. What we are being told in James 4:17 is that there are sins of omission as well as sins of commission. Neglecting to do something that you ought to do is just as great of a sin as doing something that you ought not do. God has given us life, and ability, and opportunity. How great and how terrible are the sins that you and I commit! Oh what would be accomplished if only we would get up and go instead of neglecting what the Lord has set before us. Jesus said in the Great Commission, “Go you into all the world.”

After speaking about the sin of failing to do what we could have done, James turns his attention to one group of people who sometimes miss the great opportunity that has been given to them. The Bible says in James 5:1-6, “Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. You have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth. You have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter. You have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you.”

James said, “Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you.” James was saying that these rich believers to whom he was writing had been wasting their opportunities. They were committing the sin of omission in regards to what they could have done with their riches. They did not understand or put into practice the full reason for why God had given them the riches in the first place. Why are some believers rich?

Paul also spoke about rich believers. Paul wrote in First Timothy 6:17, “Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy.” One reason that the rich have what they have is given at the end of this verse. It says, “God gives us richly all things to enjoy.” There is nothing wrong with enjoying what God has given to you: enjoying it with thanksgiving. But in addition to enjoying your riches, God wants you to be a faithful administrator of them. If you have more than what you need, then in some way God wants you to use at least part of the extra for His glory and for the name of Christ and for assistance to the poor saints.

If you are a rich believer the day will come when you will give an account to the Lord for what you did with the extra money that He put into your hands. That is what Paul meant in the first part of First Timothy 6:19 when he wrote, “Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come.” In other words if the rich use their resources for the Kingdom of God, they will be laying up in store in heaven a reward that will far exceed the riches that they had been given in this life.

James spoke of the condition of the rich who do not wisely use what has been given them for the Kingdom of God, and instead who waste the resources that God has given to them by using them only for themselves. That is why James used the words “motheaten” and “rust” to describe the condition of the riches of the rich who have only saved and horded their riches for themselves.

Another fault of materialistic believers is the impact that they have on poorer believers. The materialistic rich oppress the poor. But the thing that is the ultimate undoing of the rich and the ultimate rest and comfort for the poor is the fact that “the Lord of Sabaoth” knows what is going on, and when the time is right, He will render to all their dues. Jesus said, “Blessed be you poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God.”

Perhaps you are one of the rich ones who is in danger of wasting your riches on yourself and losing your reward. Turn to Jesus with all your heart, and He can give you the wisdom and the desire to make the proper use of your gifts before your opportunities are gone forever.

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