09.28.25 The Spirit of Future Wealth

Text: James 5.1-6 (2025 Book Study)

Introduction: “A Christmas Carol”, written by Charles Dickens, is a story concerning a man named Ebenezer Scrooge, a cold, joyless, wealthy yet penny-pinching moneylender living in Victorian England. He was a "a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint... secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster." For a man named “Ebenezer” (Literally, “stone of help” from 1 Sam. 7.12), the irony is that Ebenezer is anything but helpful to anyone but himself.

As the story goes, Scrooge is visited by three “spirits” who examine his past, present, and future, each time highlighting how his selfishness and greed has harmed others, and ultimately himself.

It is the last Spirit, the silent spectre robed in black, that is the most jarring. The “Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come” wordlessly points out various scenes indicating that Scrooge’s greed and selfishness will lead to a lonely death, a neglected grave, unpaid servants stealing his belongings, debtors relieved at his death, and the Cratchit family devastated by the loss of Tiny Tim.

What gets me every time at the end of that book/film is Scrooge’s weeping and howling at the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. When he is shown his own grave the old man claws at the spirit, he begs, he pleads to know whether all he has seen is that which MAY BE, or is that which inevitably WILL BE?

It strikes me as interesting that as thought-provoking as Dickens’s story is, it’s not the first time we’ve been encountered with a “Spirit of Things Yet to Come”. Return with me to James 5. James 5:1 “Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you.”

Here James is going to do what Dickens seems to have emulated, wittingly or not. James, by the Holy Spirit’s inspiration, is going to lead us by the hand not to the past or present, but the future, and examine the end results of the misuse of our “riches”.

I was asked recently if I would preach a sermon of financial responsibility, and I will freely admit to you that a quick trip through my house would convince anyone here that I’m the last person that needs to be asked to convey helpful information on that subject.

Thankfully, however, I don’t have to do my best “Dave Ramsey” impersonation this morning, because the Holy Spirit, speaking through the inspired authors of scripture, has done a far better job than he or anyone else in instructing us concerning financial responsibility.

James 5.1 invites us as readers to the scene at the end of time, the point in which we stand before our Creator and answer for what we’ve done with all our wealth.

First, the text: James 5.2-3

Hoarding: A Greedy Failure to Steward (James 5.2-3)

v.2-3a: The Wealth Strikes Back

Here James uses the three most common ways of accounting for wealth in the 1st century: Agricultural Products, Garments, and Precious Metals.

It is the wealth of grain or other agricultural products that can rot. The root for the word “rotted” is used to describe “bad fruit” (Matt. 7.17-18) or bad fish (Mt. 13.48)

It is the wealth of garments that can be destroyed by moths. Jesus spoke of this in Matthew 6:19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal”

It is odd to hear about the corrosion of gold and silver, because these metals are precious in part because they do not corrode!

James’ point is plain: Look at the great heap of stuff you have accumulated! There is coming a time in which your accumulated greatness becomes rot, corrosion, moth feces!

What’s worse, James describes these being brought forward as “evidence against you”: Evidence implies a trial, and the trial James is describing is yours, and mine!

The very destroying force of our hoarded wealth is brough forward as evidence of our covetousness, our greed, and our lack of trust in God to provide! But how?

Simple: “If the rich had used their wealth for good instead of hoarding it, then the moths, rot, and corrosion would not have destroyed it.” (Steven E. Runge, High Definition Commentary: James, High Definition Commentary Series (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2015), 97.

Ultimately, the corrosion itself becomes the force that destroys us: “and will eat your flesh like fire.” It is our hoarded, unutilized “pile” of wealth that strikes back at its owner, and the corrosion thereof ends up consuming not only the pile, but the pile’s owner!

v.3b: “You have laid up treasure in the last days.”

The point of judgment James will utilize throughout this section of James is the day of Judgment, or the conclusion of the “last days”

Peter (Acts 2.17; 2 Peter 3.3), Paul (2 Tim. 3.1); the Hebrews writer (1.2) and James all use this phrase to describe the final time period between the establishment of the Church and the return of Jesus, or the “day of judgment” (2 Pet. 3.7)

But look at what James says we have done in the accumulation of wealth: “You have laid up treasure in the last days.”

Jesus told a parable to this effect, did He not? (Luke 12.15-21)

The fool who busies himself accumulating and hoarding earthly wealth is ultimately rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic!

In short, the hoarder of riches or possessions tries to “play the game” better than anyone, and in large part appears in this life to succeed, but in the end they only ended up playing themselves!

Applications

In the end, investing in earthly riches is a waste.

Wealth and possessions are currencies with value in exactly one place: The Earth. What will be the value of our wealth when we have left it, or the Earth itself is gone?

2 Peter 3:10 “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.”

All the wealth and possessions we have piled up and hoarded will not result in anything of eternal value. After all, in the presence of the Creator, of what value is anything that is created?

Furthermore, what sort of reckoning is coming for all of us who have spent SO MUCH TIME, ENERGY, RESOURCES in the accumulation of these things?

Did we put the Kingdom first? Matthew 6:33 “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

We can say what we want about how we “sought first the Kingdom”, but the PILE of possessions and financial accounts left behind us stand as material evidence of a completely different story.

You don’t have to be rich to squander your life.

I know the lesson today is about financial responsibility, but finish this phrase for me: Time = Money, right? How much time have we wasted on that which is eternally inconsequential?

James just finished telling us in James 4.14 that our life was a “mist that appears for a little time”: How much of that little time have I spent doing that which was left for sinners to busy themselves with?

Consider Ecclesiastes 2:24–26 “There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.”

Did we hear that? Gathering and collecting is the business of the sinner, not the follower of God. We, brethren, are to focus on currencies that are NOT affected by inflation or rot or moths.

It’s not what you have: It’s what you do with it.

Possessions themselves are amoral: They are neither good nor evil. Barnes said that the questions of wealth and possessions are threefold: How did we get it? How does it affect us? What did we do with it?

Consider the two wise servants in Matt. 25.21-23 & the Parable of the Talents They took what they were given, leveraged ALL OF IT in the service of their master, and then the master rewarded them handsomely!

Jesus gave us one outlet for the good our things can do for others: Luke 12:32–34 “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

On the other hand, and I Love this quote by Richardson in his commentary: “The rituals of amassing wealth and curating precious objects are really a dance of death” (Kurt A. Richardson, James, vol. 36, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1997), 206.)

Brethren, what if we started regarding our “piles” (our possessions and the accounts we maintain) not in terms of how nice they look to us or how they make us FEEL (not actually, just feeling) secure, but instead in terms of the amount of good they can render to others and service they can be to God?

We hoard wealth and possessions because we do not trust God to provide our needs.

But you know, we’re crafty, we human beings. Suddenly in the context of the discussion of financial responsibility, we quickly re-define what it means to “need”. Oh, well, I NEED to secure MY financial future. I NEED this outlet, this diversion, this account or this property and on an on it goes.

Brethren: We certainly want more than we need, but we cannot need more than we need.

God has promised to provide for our needs, not our desired standard of living (more on this later)!

That which is needful for us is neither wealth nor poverty. Eccl. 2.24 instructed us to find our joy in food, drink, and work, not our possessions pile.

On the other hand, the godly person truly believes that God will provide through our work what we need, and with that we are to be content.

Fraud: Taking What God Has Given to Others

v.4: The Wealth and the Worker Both Cry Out to God!

Coming back to the text of James 5:4 “Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.”

This is a concept we’ve heard before in scripture: After Cain’s murder of Abel, the voice of Abel’s blood was said to be crying out to God from the ground. (Gen. 4.10) This is not literal of course, but figurative: The fact that Abel’s blood now stained the ground cried out as a witness to the gross injustice committed that day.

Here, the wages kept back by fraud, by their very ownership by the greedy landowner, cry out against the landowner. He wouldn’t have that money if he had paid his workers, now would he?

Plus, the voice of the unpaid workers rises to the ears of God, ears which are always turned toward the plight of vulnerable people, such as the poor. Leviticus 19:13 , part of the teaching on how one would love their neighbors as themselves (19.18) included this: “You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him. The wages of a hired worker shall not remain with you all night until the morning.”

Now consider this: Why hasn’t the wealthy landowner paid his workers? Simple: He wants to keep their money for himself, to enrich himself, to secure and protect his own future instead of doing what is right and good for those who depend on him. (I’m telling you, it’s like Dickens had the book of James open to this page when he wrote the Christmas Carol, right?)

To feed his greed, he takes and keeps for himself what God has intended to be given to others.

Applications

Pay What You Owe.

An increasing number of Christians are of the mind that debts can simply be walked-away from or ignored. This is unbiblical.

Romans 13:7–8 “Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed. Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.”

As an expression of faith in God, Christians are expected to pay their debts. We enter into debts typically by signing some sort of agreement: Those agreements are not just legally binding documents, they are spiritually binding promises.

There are circumstances in which we CANNOT pay our debts. I recognize this. However, far more common are situations in which we REFUSE to pay our debts.

We as brethren can do much to help one another by bearing burdens, when necessary, but good stewardship of our finances means we do our best to not burden one another!

If we choose not to fulfill our obligations, the money (unspent or otherwise spent) and those to whom it should have been given cries out as witness against us!

Take Only What Belongs To You.

It is just as wrong to receive that which does not belong to you as it is to withhold from another what belongs to them.

Some see their relationship to their employer as “I’m not getting enough, so I’m going to take what I think is fair.”

Examples include fabricating expenses, falsifying timesheets, stealing company property, or making/accepting bribes to gain unfair advantages.

As Christians, we work for our employers as if we work for Christ.

Ephesians 6:5–8 “Bondservants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free.”

Do not take what does not belong to you. Otherwise, that which is gained unlawfully and those from whom it was taken cry out against us!

Indulgence: Living According to Wants, not Needs

v.5a: “You have lived on the earth in luxury and self-indulgence.”

James now attacks the lifestyle that such an abundance of wealth (ill-gotten or otherwise) affords.

Living not according to needs or moderation, the rich live the lifestyle their wealth affords. After all, the world says, what good is it to have wealth if you can’t enjoy it?

This was precisely the argument of the man who built bigger barns in Luke 12:19 “And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” ’”

Paul uses precisely this idea of self-indulgence in the contrast between the godly widow (1 Tim. 5.5) and the ungodly (1 Timothy 5:6 “but she who is self-indulgent is dead even while she lives.”)

Corey put it this way earlier this year in his Truth Magazine Lectureship entry: “Too often, we find ourselves concerned with our salaries, 401k balances, retirement securities, home values, and stock market performance. Too often, we want more “bread” than a single “bread winner” can provide, so both spouses are working long hours, bearing stress, and running ragged. James asks us, ‘To what end?’ To give moth and rust more to consume? How much is enough?”

The scriptures teach that that the self-indulgent person is concerned only with further indulgence, and such selfishness renders us numb to spiritual concerns.

Many of us live lives too comfortable to be concerned with the matters of the Kingdom. They’ve forgotten that Jesus was raised by poor people, that both Jesus and His forerunner John the Baptist eschewed excess and self-indulgence, and that both of them died penniless!

Now notice the image James gives us of the results of our gluttonous lifestyles?

v.5b: “You’ve fattened your hearts in the day of slaughter.”

We have to get the visual in our mind: How much more foolish could one be?

“They are like so many unthinking beasts, luxuriating in their rich pasture day after day, growing fat by the hour and careless of the fact that each day, each hour, brings the butcher and the abattoir nearer. Only the thin beast is safe in that day; the well-fed has made itself ready for the knife. In such a way James saw the wealthy, blind alike to heaven and hell, living for this life, forgetting the day of slaughter.” (Alec Motyer, The Message of James: The Tests of Faith, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1985), 168.

As we saw in v.3, we’ve played ourselves, again! Instead of using our wealth in light of the day of Judgment by feeding our needy brethren (James 2.16), or paying our debts (5.4), or practicing good stewardship of our goods (5.2-3), we’ve fattened ourselves up, becoming the very evidence that condemns us when the “last days” comes to an end!

Applications:

Luxury and Self-Indulgence are Fun Ways to Gain Nothing and Lose Everything

Remember that Solomon, the man given unparalleled wisdom from God, already tried indulgence! Ecclesiastes 2:9–11 “So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me. And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.”

Yes, self-indulgence fun and luxury makes us feel important and powerful and safe. But what are we gaining from all this, really? Solomon says it was a waste of time! Or maybe a more-important question: What are we losing in the process?

We grow to love our desired standard of living, and so we grow to love the means of extending this lifestyle, and we by now should be good and familiar with what Paul calls “the root of all kinds of evils”: 1 Timothy 6:10 “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.”

How sad would it be to stand in Judgment with only the memory of your luxury to comfort you before Him? I think “comfort” would be the last thing our luxury would do. “Haunt” is a better word.

Humble Yourself: Live Modestly & Within Your Means

Given the extreme propensity for wealth and possessions to corrupt us, and for us to become enslaved in the stewardship of our stuff, why exactly do we keep living this way?

One reason? That’s the way the world around us lives. A world where a brand name means more than the product. Items priced to the point of exclusivity: You only have THIS brand if you have the means to purchase it!

We have swallowed our culture’s messaging to climb the ladder, live in a better neighborhood, drive a nicer car, eat expensive foods, provide far and above what our children need, and for what?

You know what is one of the most poisonous lies that has ever graced the lips of parents? “I want my kids to have it better than I had it.” It sounds noble: Is it biblical? Better and stronger faith? Certainly. I challenge anyone to show me biblical justification for that economical sort of “logic”!

Again, there is much wisdom in the middle path between excess and poverty: Consider the words of Agur, son of Jakeh: Proverbs 30:8–9 “Remove far from me falsehood and lying; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you and say, “Who is the Lord?” or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God.”

Rather than loving money and the lifestyle it affords, do as the Hebrew writer teaches us: Hebrews 13:5 “Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.””

If we have God, do we not have enough, brethren? If we die with only our faith in God to our name, have we not “won” in the end?

Stop Selling Your Future to Fund Your Present Wants

With that understanding in mind, our future time (and effort) is better spent on eternal things!

The Bible does not condemn the utilization of debt, although warnings exist as to the dangerous circumstances that arise from doing so.

Proverbs 22:7 “The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender.”

Proverbs 6.1-5: The passage Dave Ramsey loves to quote in his materials.

I recognize there are circumstances in which debt is a necessary tool.

However, the obvious (yet uncomfortable) fact is that much of our debt is unneeded and unnecessary. Most of us, myself especially, have chosen to go into debt to feed our discontentment and desire for excess.

There’s nothing that can be done about debts that have been made: We are obligated by truthfulness and stewardship to pay what we have agreed to pay.

But friends, the hole only stops getting deeper when we stop digging!

Stop selling your future wage-earning ability to fund frivolous, unnecessary, foolish desires. If our accumulated wealth and possessions stand as witness against us in judgment, would not also our credit reports???

Betrayal: Harming Others to Help Yourself. (James 5.6)

v.6: You’ve helped yourself, and destroyed the helpless.

One final time, let’s see the text: James 5.6

Now it might seem like James is making a bit of a jump here, from fiscal irresponsibility to murder, but the leap isn’t really a leap, but merely a recognition of final outcomes.

Consider the Rich Man of Luke 16.19-23: The Rich Man had every opportunity to provide for poor Lazarus, and even the responsibility to care for the poor (Deut. 15.7-8), but instead he withheld his hand, lived in luxury, and permitted poor Lazarus to succumb to his death.

This was exactly Dickens’ point concerning Scrooge & Tiny Tim: Had Scrooge taken care of Bob Cratchit the way a godly employer should, Tiny Tim might still be alive!

Sirach 34:21–22 (Jewish intertestamental literature, call it “Biblical fan fiction”) “The bread of the needy is the life of the poor; whoever deprives them of it is a man of blood. To take away a neighbor’s living is to murder him; to deprive an employee of his wages is to shed blood.”

What’s James’ point? When you’ve used your “power” (i.e. your resources) in such a way as to take advantage of the powerless (by withholding what they need), you have betrayed them.

You were meant to feed and care for them, but instead you put the food owed them into your own mouth, and they suffered because they could not resist you!

You have murdered the righteous person: Therefore, your mismanagement is unrighteousness. He does not resist you, but there stands ONE who will, on their behalf!

Applications

Philanthropy: Not just for the wealthy.

Do you know what “philanthropy” means? “the desire to promote the welfare of others, expressed especially by the generous donation of money to good causes”

The word itself comes from the Greek philanthropia, a compound word. “philo” = love, anthropos = mankind. Literally, “love for mankind”

It’s like the old Seinfeld episode and George’s “Human Fund” - Money for People.

I am not advocating that you go out and throwing your money at various causes out there, donating and getting your name on the wall down at the YMCA or on a local hospital somewhere.

Find someone who needs what you can give, and give it to them. Why? Because you love them! No reward, no expectation of quid pro quo, no favors, nothing.

This is in keeping with John’s teaching in Luke 3:10–11 “And the crowds asked him, “What then shall we do?” And he answered them, “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.””

Conclusion: Near the end of Scrooge’s interaction with the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, Scrooge makes a most interesting comment to the terrifying black-robed spectre: “Why show me this, if I am past all hope!” As it turns out, this was precisely the point. Scrooge was not past all hope. Not yet, at least.

Truth be told, whether the rich James addresses here are Christians or not, all of us who read these words prior to our appointment before the Creator are not past all hope.

There is yet an opportunity to weep and howl and repent and use our God-given resources in such a way as to glorify Him, carry out His purposes for us, and further the cause of His Kingdom.

How do we practice financial responsibility as Christians? Make all financial decisions in light of the day of Judgment, because on that day all our decisions, financial and otherwise, will be brought before the judgment seat of Christ, and we will be judged for the things we have done in this body, whether good or evil (cf. 2 Cor. 5.10)

All decisions, including whether or not to obey the Gospel of Christ by repenting of your sins, confessing Jesus as the Son of God, & submitting to baptism for the forgiveness of your sins.

We continue to invite you to come to Christ because you are NOT past all hope.

All decisions, including whether or not to return to faithful service to Christ by begging His forgiveness.

We continue to return to Christ because you are NOT past all hope. Not yet, at least.

What choice will you make?

How about you? Are you past all hope?

Or will you get up and start seeking a better ending to your story?

If we can help you, come forward now, as we sing for your encouragement.