James 5:13-20 (Teaching)

[0:00] For some it's good teachers take charge of your classes. God bless you. Morning.

[0:20] I can change chapter five this morning. More than likely we might wrap up the book of James today but I'm not going to make any promises.

[0:34] We ended last week with James making some comparisons before the patients go with particularly with the man of old Job.

[0:49] And we ended with him telling the people he was writing to, the brethren, those of the twelve tribes who were scaring abroad, him telling them to be careful of their words, be careful of what they do and what they say when he says, to swear not, neither by heaven, neither by earth, neither by oath, let your yea be yea, your nay nay.

[1:20] This is where we ended last week and I said the last chapter of James is kind of sporadic. It's not as how to phrase it really but it doesn't run quite as smooth I guess you could say as the previous four chapters just several different divisions and we're going to start another of those divisions this morning in James chapter five. So we'll pick up in James five starting at verse 13. He says, as any among you afflicted let him pray. As any marry let him sing songs.

[2:03] As any sick among you let him call from the elders of the church and let them pray over him anointing him with all in the name of the Lord and the prayer of faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up and if he have committed sins they shall be forgiven him. Back back up to verse 13 and something something you need to keep in mind in reading this whole last segment is what I've repeated over and over going through the book of James. He's writing to believers, he's writing to the brethren. We really need to keep that in mind especially when we consider the last two verses of this chapter. He's writing to believers in Jesus Christ and this section here, this passage of Scripture, when you keep in mind it's just that it's a passage and the whole anointing thing all of us have probably witnessed or maybe been part of maybe been anointed ourselves but the whole anointing thing is part of a passage of Scripture that begins in James chapter five and verse 13 and

[3:12] I'll be honest with you I've only been in one anointing service if you'd like to call it that. I've only been in one that has followed this to a T as per the passage of Scripture that actually took place at a man's house it wasn't even in church that that happened but the whole calling for the elders of the church and letting them anoint him with whole that's all great and fine and well but that passage begins at verse 13 where he says, as any among you afflicted let him pray as any among you afflicted let him pray. Well what does afflicted mean? Well if you look this term up the Greek term that was used it means that as any among you suffering not necessarily physically it could be spiritual suffering it could be mental suffering it could certainly be physical suffering but as any among you afflicted let him pray and that's any of you if any anyone in the congregation that's not just the ones that he's saying that should go for the elders of the church it says if any among you are afflicted this includes the elders that are going to be doing the anointing this would include anybody that's going to be taking part in this he says, as any among you afflicted let him pray not let him call this one or call that one not let him whine about it not let him sit and moat and feel sorry for himself as any among you afflicted let him pray and we have we have example upon example upon example of this in the scriptures of people that are afflicted people that are suffering people that are feeling woeful if you'd like to phrase it like that and what do they do they pray to take David in the Old Testament how was how was he afflicted after the after the adulterous case with Bathsheba that he had after he was convinced of his sin after he was convicted of that what did he do he said I've sinned I've sinned against God I've sinned against the Lord and my goodness he got an entire psalm written about that about his repentance but what did it drive him to do it drove him to pray drove him to repent it drove him to to come back to God per se and there's multiple accounts of this happening in the scripture the best example that we have in scripture is Jesus Christ himself just before just before he was arrested and just before the crucifixion where do we find Jesus we find him praying why because he was afflicted he was suffering he was suffering mentally and he knew that he was going to be suffering physically he and he was afflicted in these ways and that's the best example I can think of Luke's account says that he sweat or that he prayed and his sweat became his great drops of blood the man was the man was sore with affliction but what did it drive him to do it drove him to pray it drove him to pray is any among you afflicted is any among you afflicted let him pray and me personally I think that this is the way that an anointing should go should go about within any service it should start James 13 and it should begin with people praying we're coming up to praying here during the anointing but this passage begins at verse 13 is any among you afflicted let him pray as any Mary let him sing songs so we've gone from being afflicted suffering wherever the case is to is there any is there any Mary is there any among you Mary let him sing songs and this is another thing that we can find several accounts of in the scriptures and sometimes that affliction and that prayer will drive us to a to a point of merriment to a fair point of joy in the Lord and that should cause us to sing songs you look at

[7:31] Paul and Silas when they were in prison they were afflicted they were thrown into the dungeon they had they had bands around them and what did that drive them to do drove them to pray and to sing songs as any among you Mary let them sing songs you know we should admonish one another with song songs and hymns as Paul wrote to the to the Colossians we should admonish one another with those things we can encourage one another with songs and with hymns but as any among you Mary let him sing songs so he basically tells us one side of the coin here is any among you afflicted let him pray and then he flips to the other side of the coin goes on a whole different spectrum and says okay we've covered the affliction let's cover the Mary let's cover the joyful let's cover the happy is any among you Mary let him sing songs and folks this should be every Christian should take part in that because we're all afflicted to one point or another we're all afflicted with something again maybe it is physical maybe it is spiritual maybe it is emotional or mental or whatever but we're all afflicted so we can all relate to that and we should all pray because of that but at the same time if we are true blue Christians if we are truly born again then we should all be married to one extent or another we should all have joy in Jesus Christ and knowing that this affliction ain't going to last forever knowing that the affliction that we're praying about before we get to the singing the songs knowing that that will not be the case forever it'll only last for a little while and you know it may have lasted for years in your life whatever that affliction is it may last for decades in your life but that as compared with eternity that is a very short while that's the vapor that James was talking about in James chapter 4 when he asked what is your life it is but a vapor you know it can last our entire lives our afflictions because I was any among you afflicted let him pray as any marry let him sing songs as any sick among you let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him anointing him with all in the name of the Lord and I've heard it said that anointing anybody and any other name outside of the name of the Lord makes this anointing null and void well who is the Lord the Lord is Jesus Christ we know that so it's not that we have to when we pray we have to say we do this in the name of the Lord we can say in the name of

[10:23] Jesus Christ we can say in the name of the God of heaven we can say in the name of the God of heaven and of earth we can call them all kinds of things we can say in the name of the rock if we want to if as long as we're referring to Jesus Christ because he's referred to as all of those things in the scriptures and many more but I've heard people say such a thing that has to just like baptizing in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ because that's brought up a couple of times in the book of Acts that's all great and fine and well but Jesus Christ says himself at the end of the gospel of Matthew and baptizing the name of the father and the son of the holy ghost so either way you want to go with that's fine I'll go by the way Jesus said to do it but he says is any sick among you let him call from the elders of the church this blows a lot of faith healers out of the water because what do faith healers do they come into town they roll in their arenas they invite people in and they give out tickets to people they say we're inviting you to actually come up to the stage and be healed and grant some of them some of those people are plants that they bring with them from arena to arena some people though that there might just be a chance that they might be quote unquote healed they give them tickets to go to the stage folks that ain't the way scripture says to do it it says let him call for the elders of the church not let the elders call for him let him call for the elders of the church so the one that is afflicted the one that is prayed he is the one that's to call for the elders of the church not the elders go to him and say would you like to be anointed and I hadn't been preaching very long and this verse caught my attention I wasn't even reading the book of James but I thought on it

[12:22] I've told you all before I love the book of James but I thought about this verse because I'd ask people if they wanted to be anointed folks that's the way scripture says to do this let him call for the elders of the church let the afflicted call for the elders of the church if you want to be anointed you call for the elders of the church you call for them not they call for you and this uh on a side note also rolls on to if you're afflicted and you want people to know about it and you want the elders praying for you you need to inform the elders that you're afflicted you need to inform them that you're sick don't go laying in a hospital for a week and not tell anybody and get mad when the preacher don't come visit you because he never knew about it you need to inform people you need to tell people that you're afflicted you need to tell them that you want prayer now that being said you don't show up for service and you're a regular attendee and uh and you don't show up and the preacher don't call to check up on you that may fall in the preacher's lap but anybody that's not a regular attendee and you know well they missed another service maybe they'll be here next week then that don't fall on the preacher at all uh but the those that are afflicted they're the ones that call for the elders of the church they're the ones that say

[13:54] I'm afflicted I'm suffering I'm going through this I need help and I want scriptural help I want to be anointed so let them come to the elders of the church and let them pray over him anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord this all has no magic power and technically the prayers well not even technically the prayers don't have any magic power there is no magic involved with Jesus Christ for a god it is power yes but it's not magic it's not magical uh but the power is not in our prayers the power is not in the old the power is not in the elders and the power certainly not at the afflicted who if they're afflicted they're weak anyway whether it be physically spiritually or whatever the case is the power is in Almighty God and what what does a service like this though what does anointing someone do what does it what does it do not only for the elders I said we're including everybody in the congregation according to James chapter five verse 13 is any sick among or is any among you afflicted and is any among you married that's the entire congregation what does this anointing service do it concentrates everyone's prayer on this one individual's needs it and and surely the goodness out of a congregation whether it's a congregation of five people or a congregation of five hundred people surely the goodness somebody's prayer can get through somebody can pray into God the way if they're supposed to and we know just a couple more verses into this says the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much and I believe that I truly did but in disanointing service the elders are to anoint the afflicted with oil they are to pray over him says that are pray over him in the name of the Lord and the prayer of faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up how many of you people out there have heard of people being anointed how many people have prayed for people to be healed and yet they pass away yet they die is that your fault is that their fault no it's nobody's fault there's nobody's fault I've seen I've seen fingers pointed at people in congregations I've seen people say if you had had more faith when you prayed they might have lived could that be the case could be but I don't think it is the Bible says it's appointed and the man wants to die and after this the judgment it's appointed under man wants to die God knows the very day hour minute and second that I'm going to die I don't know that and I think God that I don't you all don't know that and you should thank God that you don't is appointed and the man wants to die the power of faith not the power of the old not the power of the deacons or the pastors or preachers or whoever it is it's gathered around not their power the power of faith power of faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up our face shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up listen folks I thank God for doctors thank God for medicine if it wasn't for medicine I've been dead a long time ago without the Lord the Lord the Lord can intervene the Lord can cure the Lord can heal the Lord can cleanse the Lord can do all of these things how many people have you seen saved

[17:39] I'm talking about physically how many people have you seen saved or healed of whatever disease or infirmity is that they've had that they've been to the doctor the doctors quote unquote figured out what was going on prescribed them some medicine or treated them for their illness or threw them on antibiotics because it was an infection way down deep in their body and nobody could see something along those lines and they were healed ultimately that healing comes from God ultimately doctors may have stepped in and done their thing nurses may have stepped in and done their thing you know grandma and grandpa and mom and daddy might have been praying and that was all great and fine and well but ultimately it's God that does the healing the prayer of faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up and if you have committed sins they shall be forgiven him this is not implying that if someone wants to be anointed in a church service or in their home or in a hospital bed wherever they are that the the prayer over them is enough to forgive their sins there's a couple of different ways you can look at this verse one you got to think back two thousand years ago and even on beyond that that if someone was sick if someone was afflicted a lot of times it was seen as a judgment of God because of their sin and that could be what James was getting at I personally don't think so but that could be a way to get an act of that that's how they solve things in fact that's how the old testament teaches it in a lot of places if you do this I'm going to curse you and you're going to get bowls or you're going to get this medical issue or that medical problem or what God had all kinds of curses for his people over what over sin so that could that very well could be what

[19:38] James was talking about here but he says if he have committed sins they shall be forgiven him confess your faults one to another and pray one for another that you may be healed the official firm and prayer of a righteous man availeth much confess your faults one to another and pray one for another this doesn't mean I need to know every single deep dark dirty secret that you've got stashed away and a closet and you don't need to know mine there's few things worse that I've seen in churches since I've been saved even before I got saved as a matter of fact then Christians who debate over who is the worst sinner Christians who almost talk about their sin in a prodful manner like they're bragging about it and I've been guilty of it I have years ago I was guilty of that and good Lord straighten me out on that your sins no more black or evil or wicked than my sin is if you total lie and I hadn't which that's not the case but if you've totaled a lie and I haven't then that doesn't make me any better than if I stole something and you had that sin is sin is sin is sin in the eyes of a thrice holy god who has never known sin and never committed sin no one sin is worse than another sin we've all sinned and come short of the glory of

[21:13] God according to the scripture there is no sense in us debating over who the worst sinner was it's amazing to me that as much of a sinner as I was and some of the things that I did that God would even want to save me that amazes me yes and I can brag on God about that all day long but confessing our faults one to another does not mean that we have to tell each other every little thing that we have done not only that this verse absolutely blows Catholic confessional out of the water confessing your faults one to another I confess my faults to the priest the priest needs to confess his faults to me that's one to another and that's not how they practice it but that's just a side note then confessional faults one to another and pray one for another that you may be healed that's the important part of this verse confessional faults and pray for one another common that you may be healed who does that tell me that tells me that sin in our lives gets in the way of our prayers unto God sin in our lives gets it hinders our prayer life confessing our faults one to another and praying for one another that you may be healed in other words if I've got known sin in my life and I'm going to God asking for healing for one of my boys or my grandson or my wife or anybody else and I've got known sin in my life God ain't going to hear that God ain't going to hear that and that's that's backed up in the book of Psalms I believe it's

[23:00] Psalm 68 says if I regard a nickel in my heart the Lord will not hear me if I regard a nickel if I regard sin in my life the Lord will not hear me confession is good for the soul is it not confess your faults one to another I'm a sinner you're a sinner that's confession but there's too many out there that think that they live a perfect life and they think that they live a sinless life they think when they got saved that brought them to the point of sinless perfection only Jesus Christ has ever lived a life of sinless perfection only he has done that we will have bodies one day that will that and we're going to live in eternity one day in sinless perfection but folks it ain't happening right now you sin every day I sin every day every one of us sin every day we confess our faults one to another and we pray one for another that we may be healed that we can be healed confess and pray that we can be healed the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man available as much this is where I fail and this is where a lot of people fail the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man that word fervent means intense that doesn't mean

[24:22] I've got to scream and spit and slaughter when I pray it just simply means I need to mean it when I pray I don't just fall down on my knees at night and say now I lay me down to sleep I pray to the Lord my soul to keep I mean what I'm praying and I fail at this more often more often than not I fail at being fervent in my prayers now something something major is going on in life every one of us can pray fervently every one of us can do that but in the back of our mind we might be thinking Lord I've gone to church all my life I pay my tithes I do this and I do that why are you allowing this to happen to me because we haven't been very fervent in our christian walk let alone in our prayer life I fail in fervent prayer a lot of times I do sometimes I just simply call them tired sometimes because we we just fall into a fall into a practice of it and don't really mean it we just get covered up in the wheel and we roll with it thinking that's what I'm supposed to do and we are to pray we should pray my goodness what a privilege we have to pray under the creator of this universe and what a privilege it is that he wants to hear our prayers what a privilege that is praise God for that but when we look at confess your faults one to another pray one for another that you may be healed then he says the official for a prayer of a righteous man of Elith much it's got to be official and it's got to be fervent in order for it to avail I'm not saying that God won't hear our little tiny prayer I've said many times the greatest prayer outside of the prayer of Jesus Christ in John 17 outside of that prayer I think the greatest prayer in all scripture is when Jesus is walking on the water and Peter says Lord have that you've been with me that I can come to you he says come Peter steps out Peter goes down on the water and he comes up and he says Lord save me that's my greatest prayer in all scripture Lord save me and he was talking about physical saving there he was going to drown he said Lord save me but I guarantee it was a fact when I guarantee it was fervent because Peter thought he was going to die I said to be intense doesn't mean that we we have to sweat great drops of blood as Jesus Christ did it doesn't mean that we have to yell when we pray I've been known to do that and maybe some of you all have too but that's not what fervent means fervent just means intense it means that that you mean what you are praying instead of just falling into a rhetorical prayer or a repeating prayer of some kind and the God now let's not pray for a lot of the same things every day and you all do too every one of us do that we might repeat some of the same things daily maybe even hourly where you know a few times a day where in the case there's nothing wrong with that nothing wrong with that at all but don't let those things get in the way of the things that you've heard throughout the day I told so and so I would pray for them I need to remember to do that and you pray for so and so and you pray for whatever their need is whether it's healing or or whatever the case is you go through your mind and you think of everyone that you've told you'd be praying for but what do we do a lot of times we'll say our prayers and we'll say Lord if I left anybody out bless them too and we we think that that's sufficient shame on us shame on me shame on me. Elias was a man was a man subject to like passions as we are and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain and it rained not on the earth by a space of three years and six months and he prayed again the heavens gave rain at the earth brought forth her fruit the most important part of those two verses is the very beginning of verse 17. Elias was a man subject to a lot of passions as we are in other words there was nothing special about Elijah there was he was a man just like I'm a man he was a human being just like you all are human beings and just like I am yet he was able to pray and the Lord held back the rain for three and a half years the most important part of that is that Elijah was just like us but he prayed affectionately he prayed fervently why did he do that because he believed God he believed what God said he believes he believed the words of God he believed what scriptures they had at that time from God but he believed God and because he believed God that caused him to pray affectionately and fervently and even though he was just a man such as I am he didn't walk around the halo over his head he didn't have angels wings he didn't have any of those things he said hey had a simple belief in Almighty God that Almighty God would do what he said he says Elijah was a man subject to a lot of passions as we are he was subject to the same temptations the same trials the same afflictions he was subject to everything that you and I are in fact we got a lot more luxurious we have a lot more luxurious lifestyle about us than Elijah ever dreamed of having him but he was a man subject to a lot of passions as we are and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain he all should be familiar with that account

[30:26] Elijah prayed the rain stopped three and a half years then what happened Elijah prayed again the praise I believed was seven times or six times this servant you send him out nothing was going on the boy that last time sir come back he said I see a cloud like a man's hand come up out of the sea next thing you know it done got dark rain was falling it says he prayed again the heaven gave rain and the earth brought forth referent now this may or may not be what James was getting at but we can apply it to ourselves we pray sometimes our life gets burned sometimes our life gets dried up I'm talking about a Christian life gets buried it gets dried up it's fruitless if we pray God will send the rain God will send that rain and it will bring forth fruit that's what was designed to do it was designed to to saturate the earth to cause things to spring up and those things that spring up produce fruit so when we get in our christian walk and we feel like it's dried up which every time your christian walk dries up it's your fault every time mine dries up it's my fault every time it becomes buried and fruitless it ain't God's fault it ain't my wife's fault it ain't nobody's fault but mine but I'm the one that needs to do the praying in that case I'm the one that needs to do the repenting in that in that case and I'm the one who needs to pray you pray again the heaven gave rain the earth brought forth her fruit brother if any of you do err from the truth and one convert him let him know that he which converted the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death and shall hide a multitude of sin and I'll reiterate it one last time James is writing to believers he's writing to saved people people have confessed Christ as their Savior keep that in mind when we read this because I've seen this verse take or these two verses taken out of context and applied wrongly especially in a couple of different denominations we won't get into that brethren if any of you do err from the truth and one convert him now he's talking to the brethren and he's talking about the brethren erring from the truth and he's talking about the brethren converting the brethren but what are they converting them to what do we think of when we think of conversion when we're talking about church talking about the bible talking about believing Christ conversion to somebody gets saved that's not what James is talking about here because he begins this brethren brethren says if any of you do err from the truth and one convert what does conversion mean it simply means turning them around turn around they're headed they're headed south you want them to head north they're headed east you want them to head west why because that's where the good stuff is i'm just using those as examples but it's a it's a simple turning around someone convincing someone of their ways and unfortunately this is looked over a lot of times as far as church discipline goes the folks church discipline is a very biblical thing and and you have to call people out in their sin now there's ways to go about that if you don't start out with the whole congregation you start out with that individual then if the individual ignores another individual then you get a couple of other people to go with you to that individual not calling them out in front of everybody and so on but either way it says if any of you do err from the truth folks that tells me i'm susceptible to airing from the truth if any of you brethren if any of you err from the truth i'm susceptible to it you are susceptible to it we're not bulletproof in this thing i can err from the truth you can err from the truth brethren if any of you err for do err from the truth and one convert him let him know that he which converted the center from the error of his wish to save a soul from death i can't save a soul period but when we take this into context and we go all the way up to verse 13 this is one passage of scripture that we're reading here we go all the way up to verse 13 wherever we started that today and we get down to verse 14 says is any sick of money you let them go for the orders of the church and then verse 15 the prayer facial save the sick of the Lord shall raise them up we take all that in the context or we apply verse 20 in that context it makes a whole lot more sense to us now that's not to say that if you know just as an example a drunkard gets saved and he comes to church and a few years later he goes out one weekend and gets plastered and the deacons and the pastor and whoever else goes to him and and says you really shouldn't be doing this you know you're not supposed to be drinking and he truly repents that doesn't necessarily mean that he's not going to die the next day that's not what we're saying here but when we're taking it into context and listen the bible talks about this sort of thing but we all we all know people that have been saved people have been saved at a young age and died at a young age we know people have been saved at a young age and lived on up into years and there's for some reason and and I know there's scriptures that talk about it but folks centers can live just as long unsafe centers can live just as long as saved people can and vice versa you take off through a cemetery sometime you'll see those gravestones of those babies that didn't live 24 hours they lived and died the same day and you'll also see the gravestones of people that lived over a hundred years now whether they were saved or lost I don't know folks God is no respecter of persons as far as salvation goes death is no respecter of persons as to who death claims death doesn't care how old or young you are or how old or young I am death is no respecter of persons as far as that goes but let him know let him know let who know back to verse 19 brethren if any of you do error from the truth and want to convert him one convert him let him know him is that one let him know that he which converted the center from the error of his wish shall save a soul from death and shall hide a multitude of sins I am incapable of hiding any sin from God what could James possibly be getting out of here and shall hide a multitude of sins let's go back to the drunkard that I just used as an example if we there's the same scenario drunkard gets saved a few years later gets plastered people go to him saying this is wrong you shouldn't be doing this you know better you've heard better you've heard it talk you've heard it preach you've read it yourself in the Bible and he converts which means he turned turned around headed back the the right direction because he erred in his ways and someone showed him the error of his ways and he repents not get saved again but he repents we can't get saved again you get saved once and that's it period but he turned we have hidden multiple counts of him being drunk in the future same way we'll go with lies same way we'll go with adultery same way we'll go with any about any sin that you can conceive in your head if we go to those people and we tell them the error of their ways and they truly repent which means they do their absolute best not to do that again we have helped to hide a multitude of sins that wraps up the book of james