Address—H. Short
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Us we pray now it's again we've gathered this evening to open Thy word and.
Old blessed Savior, what a privilege to have Thy holy Word in our hands and with full liberty to read it anywhere.
And yell blessed savior.
Oh, how humbling it is. But we pray. As we open thy word tonight, our hearts might be touched. We ask it Bless it, Lord Jesus, for thy glory and our blessing and thy precious name. Amen.
Well, I would like to go back again to James. Before we go on. In Chapter 4, there is a thought I I want to bring out. I skipped over a verse and I think it's Chapter 2.
And I want to go back to that verse in starting this evening.
Actually, it was a verse. I never had thought much about it until.
Week or so ago.
And after.
Us in chapter 2, after speaking about having respect to persons and then the law and being guilty of all the law if we break one point.
He goes on and then in verse 12 he says something rather remarkable, it seems to me.
Remember now he's talked, just finished talking about breaking the Law of Moses and how you're guilty if you broke one of them, you were guilty of it all. Death.
But think of this, he said. So speak ye.
And so do as they that shall be judged.
By the law of Moses, no.
By the law of liberty. Now we have looked at the law of liberty as that.
Law or principle of things that sets us free to do what we want to do.
And what we want to do is the will of God, but here.
The law of liberty is spoken as something that will be our judge. What does this mean? Well, the next verse gives us the key, I believe, to what this verse means. And so he says if he verse 13 For he shall have judgment without mercy that hath showed no mercy. And then it says a mercy rejoices against.
Judgment or.
Glories over judgment.
Now just keep this. Brother Lyle spoke of this passage, but turned to Matthew 18.
And I believe there you have the thought of what it means.
To be judged by the law of liberty. You know, I I feel perhaps I'm wrong, but I I kind of doubt that I am, that we have a misconcept of grace. That grace and truth came by Jesus Christ and consequently.
As him coming with grace and truth, and we finding our law cast in the dispensation of the grace of God.
That somehow in our mind, we are free from all responsibility now, and God's government has been put on hold until he takes Israel up again. And it it couldn't be further from the truth. Well, here's what I believe it means to be judged by the law of liberty, and it's in the 18th of Matthew toward the end of the chapter in that account where this servant.
Owed his master and he didn't have anything to pay him.
And it says in verse 25 of Matthew 18. But for as much as he had not to pay, his Lord commanded him. Now notice this.
To be sold and his wife and children and all that he had and payment to be made. Now the master says he's got to pay this bill and so we're going to sell him his wife, his children and all that he has. Well, what this judgment meant was that this man, this servant would be sold to another master and whatever he brought would be used to pay.
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Is that?
Well, this man said have patience with me. And instead of having patience, the master just said in verse 27, the Lord of that servant was moved with compassion and loosed him and forgave him the debt. He said don't worry, you don't have a debt anymore now. That's why you and me who have confessed Christ as our Savior, we say we've been set free. We are in the good of the law of liberty.
Oh God, anything anymore because the Lord Jesus has paid it all. Will we go on? In this story we see what this set free man does. He takes his fellow servant by the neck and he shows him no mercy.
Said You're going to pay me all that you owe me now. Here.
This man who had initially been forgiven all comes unto just under judgment to his master, who had shown a willingness to forgive him, and here is his judgment.
Then verse 32 is Lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, Oh thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desirest me, Shouldst not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow servant, even as I had pity on thee? Now notice the punishment.
He said, and his Lord was wroth and delivered him to tormentors.
Till he should pay all that was to him how much sore punishment this man fell into by despising the law of liberty he had been brought into. And that's the thought in this verse. You say you know the Lord Jesus as your savior, but you live your life in an unforgiving way to others. You exact from others, you say, well, I I don't even have a servant.
Oh yes, we all have a service. You ever take in your car somewhere? And I suppose being in the service work myself, I I've especially felt it from time to time. But you take it, you you have somebody do something for you and they make a mistake.
Can you say at all right, We all make mistakes. Do we? Do we say I pay good money and you didn't even do this right? I just had this thing in here last week. Be careful, beloved. We have been forgiven all. I'm not saying that we shouldn't expect something for what we purchased, but we need to be careful when we have hired something done or something. A man is doing something for us and he makes a mistake.
Realize that and not, you know, our whole medical world is in such a mess because.
Of these.
I won't call them what I think of them as the lawyers who take people and sue doctors because doctors make I, you might say, honest mistake. Well, you know, we who know Christ as our Savior, we can't afford to take anyone by the neck and say, look here, you better make this right or you can make demands on people. And so James says, if you say.
And you have been brought into the law of liberty, and you don't show mercy.
He says, either showeth no one, for he shall have judgment, and that showed no mercy. But then this last expression and mercy rejoiceth against judgment. What is it, beloved, when Christ comes to judge the world, we won't be there in trembling. Oh, we're not going to be there in trembling. We're going to rejoice. And what are we going to rejoice in that?
That we have been shown mercy. I just love it.
I mean, I I used to tell them Then after jail, you know, I'm going to be in heaven now because of what I've done for God. But what God has done for me, he's showing me mercy. And now the other gathering to in our interactions with one another, with our neighbors, with people who work for us and do things for us. And when we have an occasion to show mercy, let's show mercy.
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Because we have been forgiven. A great thing, but in truth, beloved Christianity.
And the introduction of Christianity and mercy.
Into the human race. The consequence of that not being received by faith is going to bring the most awful judgments ever known to mankind. Of how much sore punishment shall it be thought for those who trample under foot the blood of Christ?
Who do this fight to grace and also beloved. Don't think we're out from under the government of God, we're far more responsible than those who were under the law of Moses. Now I'd like to go on to chapter 4 and.
Let's see, I I want to spend probably most of our evening in chapter 5, but I would like to.
Let's start.
In chapter 4.
And.
Verse 7 verse 6 God give us more grace. Wherefore he saith God resisteth the proud that that I don't like that. And because you know sometimes only God sees that sin.
People we don't always see pride, but God sees it. And sometimes.
Maybe you have, but I felt the resistance of God in my life. Someone said, you know, God's never against us, but there is an aspect when God loves us so much that he is against us, He's against the way we're going. He sees those workings of pride in our heart and he starts bringing things into our lives to resist us. I remember one time when I was my early days of cleaning carpet and.
Had gone to the carpet school and I really believed them. It was embarrassing when I looked back on.
That I was actually going to be able to perform the best type of carpet cleaning available. And I was cleaning in this lady's house, this house, and she had this.
Well, she didn't think of it as a dumb chandelier, but I did. It was a wooden chandelier with candlesticks sticking in it. And I thought, you know, that's dangerous. I better watch out for that. But I got thinking how good a job I was doing on her carpet and my head bumped that candle holding all the candles, flopped out and fell on the end table. And I see the Lord saw he was paying attention to what was going on in my heart.
And the pride that was coming in my heart. And I thought, all right, Lord, I'm sorry he got my attention. And I thought maybe I better judge it too since he had judged it. And I looked and half hour from a little bang here, so on the candle it was all right. And I put it back up. And you know, pride isn't always gotten rid of. And my mind got carried away again.
And only I could do this. I bumped it again with my head, of course, and all they came again, and this time one of the candles.
Landed on a wedding, kind of a thing that they had encased with glass and they built that glass. And you can imagine I was a little more earnest the second time in my confessing what was going on in my hot mind and in my heart. Oh, beloved, God resists you. He'll resist what no one else see. No one else was in the house. The Lord was in the house. He resists things and believe when things go against you a little bit.
Be sensitive to that. You know, if we're sensitive to the little things in our life and we may be spared bigger things in our life, well, God resists the proud and he gives grace to that is, you know, that's how we live our lives. We live our lives by the power of the grace of God. That's what Christianity is. It isn't that we have any more strength than they did under the law.
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We have a life, and God has come in, and he has given us a deposit of grace that you and I can't exhaust. And Paul says that grace had wasn't bestowed on me in vain. He said I labored more abundantly than they all. You know, we think of grace as something that picking us up out of the mud. That's the that's the lowest aspect of the grace of God, the highest desirable aspect of the grace of God. It would keep you out of the mud.
And that's what Paul meant when he said God's grace wasn't bestowed on me, and they I labored more abundantly than all the other apostles. Do you think that was pride? No. He was glorying in the grace of God with the grace of God could do to a fellow like Paul, and it can do it for you and me, too, if we humble ourselves. Now draw nigh to God and some of these expressions cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your heart, you double my.
Oh wow. We wouldn't want James coming here and saying this to us, but keep in mind he is writing to the 12 tribes and in that 12 tribes there were unconverted Jewish brethren, his brethren after the flesh, and he's trying to reach their conscience. It isn't necessarily that he is talking to the believing Jews, his Christian you might what we would call Christian brethren, although in principle it might be. But what I do want to point out is.
Sometimes we portray our Lord Jesus as a rather passive never offending anyone. Listen, the Lord's servant and the Lord Himself. They knew how to speak a stern word where a stern word was needed. And beloved, we shouldn't frown on brethren who have a little stern word for sometimes.
You know we need it, don't we? And we think our children need it, but not need, not mom that we need.
They're weird sometimes while James has a stern word here and he said cleanse your hands, you're sinners.
Be afflicted and mourn and weep, and let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to having us. You see what James is saying, He said. See how man can make himself happy, man can make himself comfortable without the Lord, and he doesn't even know it. And so James said, you better stop, you're laughing, you better stop all this joy and you better start mourning.
And you better start realizing the benefit of heaviness. Well, beloved being what we are, fallen and estranged from God, Cain had sought to make a world where we could have joy, where we could have laughter. Can I say a little word to younger ones coming on in the world?
The world is full of laughter. The world is full of this joy. But it's passing. It's passing and it's not real. Oh, it's not real. Well, let's go on to verse 11 first. And verse 10. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord. He shall lift you up. Speak not, evil.
One of another brethren.
He goes on and to tell us why.
He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother speaketh evil of the law.
And Judith the law. But if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge. There is one law giver.
Let's think about this a little bit.
Speak not evil.
One of another. I don't even suppose this is necessarily one to another.
But we can develop a serious habit of talking about one another in a not good way. We can't afford to do it, beloved. We we're not strong enough to bear that kind of an evil. And so let's not do it. For we're speaking about the law giver.
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Now down in verse 13 it says go to now.
Ye that say today or tomorrow, we will go into such a city and continue their year and buy and sell and get gain. We make our plans and lies. There's no problem with that. Beloved, I wasn't raised in a family that made any plans if we decided to go swimming. We decided to go swimming now and we went now. If we decided to do this, we didn't decide it until we wanted. Why would you make plans to do something?
If you weren't going to do it, you know, we just do it when we were ready. And of course, there are some disadvantages to living that kind of a life. Now, Jane isn't saying I don't want you to have to make plans. You know, God had to take me up on that too. I didn't realize how unorganized I was until I went into my own business and I didn't have a boss telling me 5 days, six days, a week what I was going to do and then.
The assembly took up most half of my nights and come Saturday or three day there was number.
You didn't have anything to decide. There was already the leaking faucet and roofs and whatever you had to do that. But when I went on my own, I realized I didn't know how to plan. And James isn't undermanning making plans. That's not what he's approaching here. What he is approaching is this self-confidence that man has in himself to make himself secure and to think that you are able to do anything.
We can't, beloved. And so he goes on and says, for what is your life? What is your life? You know, I used to have a little boy. It says here what it is. It's even as a vapor and appears for a little time and then vanisheth away. Oh, wonder if children, any of your little children, do this anymore. There seems to be so much for children to do to look at and be occupied with, but.
I didn't have a lot, but I had all the gods creation even though.
I didn't really know God created about it. I used to lay down up there in Michigan and I would pick out a big cloud, you know, and I just watch it and watch it go across the sky. And pretty soon it was no cloud anymore. I have to take another cloud. Same thing happened to the next cloud. That's what James is saying. He said your life is just a vapor. Look up at the cloud and watch that cloud.
Joel says. We look at the sparks. Last evening, Agnes and I were watching. We made a little campfire and watching the sparks go up, the very highest spark fades away and falls back down. That's our life. And did you ask the oldest ones here? They don't know what happened to this life and what happened then? All we're left is a few dewdrops takes about to the end and disappeared. Beloved, that's how frail we are.
And so let's not trust what we are for anything, because we don't know about tomorrow, but we can say if the Lord will and we would live. It's a little different in Mr. Darby's translation.
Verse 16 Ye rejoice in your boastings, and all such rejoicing is evil I just heard of.
Of an example of this person, dear Steve told us in his home this evening that.
The The executives of Walmart plan to get something like 80% of the grocery market.
You gotta do it. You gotta. But God says whatever man sets his mind to, he can do it. But God. God is God and he You can only do what he lets you do. But men boast, we're going to be #1, or we're going to be this, or we're going to be that. And beloved brethren, we can't afford to do that. Let's just say and mean if the Lord will.
We will do this or that. And if he doesn't, we're glad not to do it. Don't stretch your heart on something. I work for a lady one time. She is a Christian lady. Oh, she is miserable. She is miserable. And her husband had left. I I don't justify that.
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Well, anyway, I was glad I wasn't her husband, but she is a miserable woman and she was angry at the Lord because the Lord didn't give her this house and this other neighborhood that she wanted.
She she didn't know, or she couldn't be contented with a God who can tell us no and God can tell us no, beloved. And we need to learn to rejoice that our God can say no. It's a wonderful thing. If he says no to us on some desire we have, we shouldn't fret under we shouldn't try to force the matter. He knows better than we do what we need, and so we can just.
Trust him for all these things.
And not rejoice in our boasting. All such rejoicing is evil. Therefore to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not to him it is then. Now here is a question of knowing what should be done. But you just don't do it. It's thin. Here's something doing nothing. It's sin. How many things do you know that should be done, that could be done and done by you?
That you're not doing tonight?
They are. They exist, don't they, in our lives. But him that knows to do good and doesn't do it, that's sin. It's a lot easier, you know, to let someone else do it. And then if they make a mistake, we can criticize them for it. But beloved, if you know to do good and you don't do it, it's now in chapter 5. I want to move down rather quickly. But he speaks about the rich man.
And weeping and hall for your miseries that shall come upon you. Beloved, this is true.
Now, it doesn't mean that rich men are more miserable than poor men.
But it means that men who are rich are going to leave those riches and they're going to sometime in their life or in their death.
Realize the poverty of the pursuit that they spent their life pursuing. Don't do it. You love it. Let Christ be our object. We won't be disappointed when we come to our you. Look at the beloved Apostle Paul.
I suppose next to the Lord, he was the poorest man that ever lived, abandoned, alone. And what's he doing? I wasted my life. I tried to build the church and look at it. It's all turned away from me. No, he said. I'll tell you what, Timothy, go on, For I know who I have believed, and I know that he is able to keep that which I committed to him against that day. No, it's a wonderful thing to come to the end of your life.
And not have regret about how you've spent your life and love it. If you spend it pursuing the wind, it doesn't have to be money. It can be anything, pleasure or work or whatever. If it's not the Lord in some measure, you're going to feel the weight of these verses. Your riches are corrupted, your garments are moth eaten, your gold and silver is tanker.
Then down and the anniversary you have heap treasure together.
For the last days. And then he tells how they had gotten it by plundering those who had worked for them. And now I want to go down to verse six rather.
Ye have condemned and killed the just, and he does not resist you. Primarily, I think this was.
Had its fullest expression in the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus, but he wasn't the only one that died at this people's hands. You know, they stoned Stephen with a just man and they'd kill him, and their hands were stained with the blood of the death of just men. And not only that, Remember, earlier they gave favor to the men who were wealthy in their synagogues. These are significant things.
It occurred to me today that James has the spirit of God in this epistle is bringing us to a climax. He's bringing us to a remarkable apex, and that's going to be seen in two words in a little bit. But here he's laying the groundwork for it. He said you favored the rich. You've given the poor man a place under your feet. That poor man was Christ. He came into their synagogue.
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Came into their temple and they would not have him. They would not give him the exalted place he was supposed to have because he was a poor, despised man. And then they killed this just man.
And then he talks to those who know the Lord. Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord.
Behold the husband, And waited for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it until he received the early and latter rain. Be also patience, establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. Oh, I thought, it is this is wonderful. Wouldn't it be wonderful to live a life that you haven't reached your harvest yet? Sometimes I think, Lord, I don't know if there's going to be one thing left.
I read so much here on earth. I don't know there's going to be any harvest for me in eternity. But beloved, wouldn't it be wonderful to not have reaped your harvest when you leave this earth? That's what James is saying, said. I want you to go on in patience. Don't try to live like a rich man now. Don't try. As the Corinthians, they were reigning as kings without Paul and the apostles. They were living in luxury. James has brought that out to us.
He's saying don't leave your high risk yet or you won't have anything. But he said just be patient, go on with the Lord, go on by faith and doing works for the Lord, and when the Lord comes you'll reap your harvest, beloved. You know that story we've heard of maybe some of the younger ones. When and this is just that way. You call it a parable where?
This two believers and this one believer, he went to heaven and he was looking forward that, you know, we have that kind of idea.
In my father's house are many mansions. There's a song I've listened to the other day, just build my mansion next to the throne where the Lord is. We got that little concept. And I have to say, driving around Coralville area or down there, I thought, I can't help but think the Lord's going to build me a better house than these guys. But anyway, this man went to heaven, they said. Where his shoes were that little.
Sandy, over there. That's yours. That's my. I thought I was imagining no excess.
We built it with the material. You sin ahead. Rebuild it with the material that you send away. That's what James is saying. He's saying don't reap your harvest here. Wait. Live for the Lord. And when the Lord comes, you'll see your patience, your endurance You're going on with. The Lord has paid off. Well, beloved, let's trust. And it will be true. Our harvest hasn't been reaped.
And so he said, be patient. And then he comes down and he said grudge, not one against another, Brethren, I'm glad we're not guilty of that. We never.
Get jealous of one another. Have this kind of thought toward one another. You know, if someone came in tonight and said I'm going to give somebody here $1,000,000 tonight, and they gave it to Brother Karl, we had all fail. I'm so glad he got it. There wouldn't be any thought in our heart that we kind of wish that we at least got attackers on it or something. No, no, beloved.
We don't want these kind of thoughts to let's seek one another's welfare in one another's blessings, and grudging out one against another, lest he be condemned. Behold, the judge standeth before the door. Now here are two aspects.
Of the Lord's coming, One is for those who wait in patience, who go on in faith and looking and living for a day that's not yet arrived. They're going to reap a wonderful harvest. But there is another aspect to the Lord's coming. It's those who've lived our lives for ourselves. And when we are caught to heaven, we'll find the truth of His words. We saved our life and we lost it.
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Beloved, let's lose our life in this world, that we might save it in that to come, But the Lord comes in those two characters. He comes as bringing a rich harvest for us, for He comes as that judge.
Well then it says.
Take my brethren, verse 10, the prophets who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering, affliction, and the patience you know.
I go to cemetery recently I went to a cemetery and I stood at the grave of of brother Dan Anderson's father and and I stood at the grave of Missus Whitaker first Missus Whittaker and David Anderson. And I thought that they finished their course they're gone now they're like there's no difference in my life. And we all we think well they're home and now these verses we can take the prophets where we can say that's the way to do it job that's the way to do it Jose. It that's the way to do it Samuel.
Go on. But what about you? What about me? We have finished our course and we're finding it a little harder to follow their steps. Aren't we? Where we we need to be encouraged. And so James says, well, we look at those.
Profits and we have spoken in the name of the Lord, and we're an example of suffering and affliction of patients. Behold, we count them happy, which endure. We're glad they finished their course. I think, of those disturbance of the Lord.
Who crossed my life, invented the benefit to me? Mr. London. You know, I've been his presence just a couple hours before he went home. You know what he's doing. He's trying to make a chart on prophecy. It already lost most of his mind. He wasn't coherent in everything. But he would say, he said to me, brother, come here, you might be interested in this. He had a piece of paper, a piece of paper and a pencil. And he said his mind was confused. He said this is 1936 and and then this is where we are. And then he said, well.
And then I have to wait for my son to help me with this one.
He finished his life, the way he lived his life and the things of the Lord. And I looked at his Gray sight and I sound glad he made it. He's home. And servants and brothers and sisters. I know more of them in glory than I know on earth. They're home. They're safe to finish their course. But we haven't finished ours. And we're not just to look on them and say we're glad you made it, but we want to make it to And James says.
We want to make it too. And so he says, and we can't. We call them happy. But he said, and you've heard of the patience of Job and have seen the end of the Lord. And the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy. We don't like to wait for the end of the Lord or the purpose of the Lord. That's the end of the Lord. Job had a hard time. But you know, I've been very encouraged about Job as far as I know, every reference to him outside of the book itself.
Is a commendation of Joviere's patience. And then he has spoken of as saving himself. He had been able to save himself. He was that character man, Daniel Job and.
The other one slips my mind right now. They would have been able to save themselves at Noah if they hadn't been able to save anyone else. That's the character these men had. The Beloved were still in the journey, and not only called them happy, they finished their course, but let them be an encouragement to us to go on, then. Verse 13. Is any among you afflicted? We know they are our let him pray.
We have a resource when we're afflicted. Land grammar, land Complain I I think those dear nurses at the hospital I'm sorry for them and the VA that's especially because they get us characters for their patients and they use stand in line. You know we don't like stand in line and we can play how slow they are and how long. Just like the army hurry up and wait. Maybe was the same way.
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Oh beloved, are we afflicted.
Let us complain. No, let us pray. Let us pray. And then it says if any, Mary. That's quite a question, isn't it? It's hard to find married people.
I suppose it's because we have such a.
Difficult circumstances in the United States of America. The, you know, we don't have things so convenient and it's really difficult to live in our country. And I suppose that's why we're not happy. It's so hard to find someone happy. I why can I watch people?
If they look at you, they think that guy, he's probably escaped from the cycle where he seems to be happy. No beloved is any happy. Are we happy? What are we supposed to do, if any? They let him sing songs and then it says if any among you, if is any sick among you, let him call. Now here is the apex. I'm going to change the wording here.
That to me, this is astounding. I'm going to read it different than it is.
Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders in Israel.
Why does Jave bring in the Church?
Why does James bring in the Elvis?
I want to dwell on this.
This is the first Christian language. I mean, that's peculiar to Christianity, that's exclusive Christian in the book of James. Those two words? The church.
I would like to suggest what James has done in this book.
He has written to a people who were scattered under the government of God. They had lost Jerusalem, and James is saying.
Israelites.
I want to take you to stand beside the Lord.
When he looked over Jerusalem.
When he wept and said those words, O Jerusalem.
Jerusalem, How awkward I have gathered thee.
And he's telling his gathering the 12 tribes scattered.
You will never be gathered to the Lord's name, and that's in Jeremiah, two or three at Jerusalem.
It's all over. Our earthly center is done, and it isn't the healers or the gift in the church, it's the elders. It is when you get elders, you get the administrative side of the assembly.
It's the assembly as seen in Matthew 18. James is saying the Lord set aside Israel in chapter 13 in a figure, and he introduced the assembly in chapter 18 as the place where his administration was going to be carried on on earth and brethren, if you're sick, if you've got a problem now.
You're going to have to go to the church. It's all over. This word, in a way, must have broke the heart of the Israelite. So confident you know the disciples themselves will call it this time. Restore Israel. Oh Lord, no.
If you're going to find me now, beloved, you're going to have to find me in the midst of the two or three who are gathered together unto my name. Jerusalem is done with, they tell me, Josephus said when the doors of the temple were closed and the uproar relating to Paul, they were never opened again until that temple was dismantled.
By the destroying armies of Titus, oh beloved, this is a close.
A door closed through Israelite but then God and grace said that I have.
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A secret council that I told you back there in Deuteronomy 2929.
The secret things belong to the Lord your God, and I want to let you in on a secret if I've shut up Jerusalem forever to you.
I've opened the door of the assembly. I've opened the door. It's like the Lord is saying to the children of Israel, you know what the In days there was that pool that says this pool, and there was an Angel that came and there was still a little faint ray of hope there at Jerusalem in that pool. The Angel would once come in trouble, The water and one person at least.
Could be healed.
That pool is gone forever.
Nothing in Jerusalem. It was a pool in Siloam, where a blind man could go and wash and get his sight again. The pool of Siloam is dried up, its clothes forever, but brethren.
Call the elders of the assembly. God has given you a city of refuge to flee to.
Call the elders of the city of that refuge the Assembly of God, and you can have relief from your sins. Here in this world there is a new administrative center. Oh, it is very precious to me. I want to share with you the pool of Siloam that means the same one. And here is what I believe this means when the Lord said.
He took this dirt and he spit into it and he made mud out of it and put it on that blind man's eyes. What I think he was doing in figure he was saying you represent Israel. And how they see me spittle is, I believe, always a a contemptible thing. And he is saying the Jews in John's Gospel, they look at me.
As a man.
An earthy man, the Lord was not of the earth earthy.
He was not an earthly man like you and me. And they said he wasn't. God, wasn't his father. He wasn't the same one from heaven. He had his birth because of it. He wasn't diligent in a child. That's what they were inferring when they said we be not born of fornication. And the Lord said, this is how your nation, your people, my people, Israel, look at me. They look at my humanity.
As a despised thing, and it as though I am like them a son of fallen Adam. Put it on your eyes. Now go to that pool, this pool sent and voiced. And what did he do? He washed that concept of Christ humanity from his eyes. How does the end of days? He says. Who is he Lord, he said, I that speak to you?
And he and he worshiped the Lord. He saw who the Son of God was. He saw that Jesus was not an earthy man. He despised earthy man, a contemptible man. He saw him as the Son of God, become man, sin here from heaven. And so silence pool is dried now, because he descent one is in glory, and all of these resources of Jerusalem forever gone.
Until Genesis says child come, whose right it is, the Lord Jesus will return to that city with blessings. But until then, beloved, this people scattered forever, scattered, until Shiloh comes, had recourse to the assembly. Now I want to talk about the assembly as it relates to you as a city of rafters.
Below it I've been gathered to the Lord's name.
For more than 40 years.
And I suppose I've seen yes, I I don't have to suppose it. I've seen more leave.
The assembly.
Than hath stayed.
Our hall in Des Moines had all who had been in the assembly at one time or another gone on in the assembly, our hall would be too small to hold the number.
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The beloved. It is a city of refuge for my soul.
Rather said to me, you know, I suppose Henry anymore. It doesn't have that character anymore as a city of refuge. We're so weak, I said.
Your family out of it.
And see what happens.
Don't despise this little company gathered to the Lord's name. Beloved, I don't believe we would exist.
If the Spirit of God had not brought us together to the name of the Lord Jesus and beloved, we wonder why the power to carry out these verses that are talking about.
Why can't we carry out? We say they did it in the 1830s. You know that. I believe it's because we haven't responded to the first four chapters of this book that we don't have the power to lay hold of this precious privilege. I think if we would repent of our failures that we have seen in this book and judge ourselves, we would know more of the power that accompanied the elders of the assembly.
But I want to point out one other thing about these men. It says.
Anointing him with oil and the prayer of faith shall save the sick. No works here, beloved.
And speak of the church. And one other thing in that expression. I want to call our attention to it. I think it may be of some significance in your life, and I would like you to weigh this. If it's not true or not, I want to misread verse 14 again. Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of an assembly.
It's not what it says for others, Church.
It's a dream church.
You're not. This company gathered to the Lord's name in Cedar Rapids does not look that is a member of the body of Christ. It's looked at as the body of Christ. It's not looked at and it's administrative capacity as an assembly. Even in Matthew 18, it doesn't say go to an assembly. It says tell the church there's only one and when you ask in your decisions.
Acting on behalf of the whole Church of God, you're looked at by the Spirit of God as being the assembly. Now that should cause your brothers in the care meeting to tremble. When you take up administrative matters, it should cause you to fear that you will be guided by the Holy Word of God. And when you make decisions that are going to affect the other assemblies, you're taking that decision.
On their behalf. You're not taking it independent from them, you're taking it as though you were the assembly and you're taking it on all other assemblies behalf. And we need to fear our God and tremble when we take the place. I say take the place or fulfill that role not as though it's anything anyone is attaining or aspiring to, but when we act as elders in a care meeting.
To do it in Holy Spirit and Holy Trembling. Because if an act of you decide upon is brought into the assembly, you're taking it on behalf of the assembly. God is looking at you as the Church, not an assembly you look at as the Church. Keep it in mind that may be needed for you.
In time to come to help guide us through troubles, times and no doubt will come upon us.
But beloved.
Let's go through this book alone with God. Let him speak to our hearts. Let us let Him bring us into this assembly, and let us let him bring us into this state of things where we can be a help and a healing to one another.
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I think we'll close here, but.
I would say one more comment if I might permitted and the effects over proven prayer. Verse 16 Confess your faults again. Remember it's your fault, not your brother's fault. One to another and pray one for another that ye may be healed. The thought here I think the primary thought still isn't necessarily a question of the person being sick because of the government of God, but surely that thought is in this portion.
And I think in the context of the 12 Tides, James is saying you're sick brethren, and your only hope is the Assembly of God. You better flee to it. And he says effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man.
And it says down in the.
Verse 17 Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are. And he prayed earnestly, I think, and he prayed again. The thought of Mr. Darby translates.
He paid.
In something like in prayer. In other words, it wasn't just words. It was a thing that occupied his heart. And again, in our prayers, collectively and alone with God.