The Miseries of Unrighteous Abundance
James 5:1-6
The book of James talks a lot about the things that reveal our inner heart. One of the clearest revelations of our hearts and values is our use of money and material possessions. Since we began this study of James, we’ve noted that the author is presenting tests of genuine faith; tests which validate or invalidate a person’s claim to be a Christian. The first six verses of chapter 5 of this letter represent the strongest rebuke in the entire epistle. In this instance, his barrel is aimed at those who claim to worship God, while they really worship money.
So before anyone gets defensive about this passage, understand that the problem is not our money… the problem is the relationship of our faith to our money. James Moffatt said, “A man’s view of money is the most decisive test of his character – how he makes it and how he spends it.” Most of us have heard that counsel before. The amount of a person’s wealth is irrelevant to James’ critique. Whether one has a little wealth or massive wealth, the underlying issue is the orientation of the heart toward God. Leslie Flynn said, “Money reveals where our interests lie; it can direct our attitudes; it ever exposes us to the danger of worshipping it; and it represents value.” Then he says, “Money not only talks; it screams.”
Nowhere in Scripture (and there are over 2,300 verses on money) but nowhere is the possession of money called sinful; it always goes back to the heart. Think of money as a tool. Is a hammer good or bad? Well, a hammer is a tool; it can be used for both good and bad. You can build a beautiful house with a hammer – or you can destroy a house with a hammer. The use of a tool makes it good or bad. With the right heart, money can be a tool for great purposes; purposes that bring glory to God. But with a greedy or wicked heart, the same money becomes a tool for unrighteousness. Giving a large sum of money to a fool is as wise as giving a sledge hammer to an angry four year old. Both will do untold damage.
Some of the most generous and godly people I’ve known over the years have been wealthy with the riches of this world. I’ve seen amazing acts of generosity. I heard of one man who gave away over 70% of his income every year and still had plenty in that remaining 30% to live well. He loved to support righteous causes with the resources God had given him. But I’ve also known of some very selfish and miserly wealthy people… people who loved neither God nor other people. These are the kind of people who take advantage of others, who cheat and swindle, and then at the end of the day, they measure their success in dollars and cents. These are the kind of people James addresses in the first 6 verses of chapter 5. God wants the whole Body to hear this timely rebuke. In honor of God and His Word, let’s stand for the reading of these verses.
5:1 Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries which are coming upon you. 2 Your riches have rotted and your garments have become moth-eaten. 3 Your gold and your silver have rusted; and their rust will be a witness against you and will consume your flesh like fire. It is in the last days that you have stored up your treasure! 4 Behold, the pay of the laborers who mowed your fields, and which has been withheld by you, cries out against you; and the outcry of those who did the harvesting has reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. 5 You have lived luxuriously on the earth and led a life of wanton pleasure; you have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned and put to death the righteous man; he does not resist you. [NASB]
[Prayer] These first six verses of James five are a striking declaration God’s judgment on the unrighteous wealthy. Their unrighteousness is revealed in their relationships with those who depended on equity and fairness in business – but didn’t receive it. There are four things these fat cats did to arouse the anger of God… and they still apply to us today. In the first three verses, he tells us that…
I. God will judge the unrighteous wealthy for their useless hoarding (1-3).
Look at the introduction in verse one: “Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries which are coming upon you.”
James uses this formula “Come now” twice in a row; he uses it here and in 4:13. The first time, he was addressing the presumptuous fools who planned their lives as if God didn’t exist. Here, the warning is directed at those who wickedly hoarded their wealth. “Come now” has the same force as “listen up!” or “pay attention!” in our language. So he’s calling for their undivided attention before giving this blistering rebuke.
Then, in the tradition of great OT prophets before him, James tells his condemned subjects how to respond based on the message he was about to pronounce: “weep and howl for your miseries which are coming upon you.” The word “weep” is from a word that means “to sob out loud” or “to lament”. It depicts the reaction that sometimes accompanies intense guilt and shame. James used the same word in 4:9 to describe the kind of sorrow that ought to accompany true repentance… “Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy to gloom.”
But where there is no weeping in repentance, there is no grace of forgiveness; so James adds the word “howl” to paint a darker picture. This word occurs only here in the entire NT. It goes beyond simple weeping or lamentation; this refers to shrieking or screaming from inconsolable grief. Taken together, these two words picture an intense outburst of violent despair and wailing grief. This is due to the miseries which have yet to come upon the unrighteous who used their wealth to control and subdue others. This will happen… it’s only a matter of time.
The miseries described by James are a picture of overwhelming hardship, trouble, suffering, and distress. Such misery will be visited upon the wicked rich when they appear before the Lord in judgment. Jesus warned them in Luke 6: “Woe to you who are rich, for you are receiving your comfort in full. Woe to you who are well-fed now, for you shall be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep” (Lk. 6:24-25). James reiterated what Jesus had already said throughout His ministry. Like Ebenezer Scrooge, this is a warning to change before it’s too late. Like all warnings in Scripture, this is a call to repentance!
Verses 2-3: “Your riches have rotted and your garments have become moth-eaten. 3Your gold and your silver have rusted; and their rust will be a witness against you and will consume your flesh like fire. It is in the last days that you have stored up your treasure!”
When God entrusts believers with material goods of any amount, they are always meant to be used for His glory. The life situation and amounts will vary from Christian to Christian, but the general principle applies to all of us. Those who name the name of Christ are not supposed to amass a fortune only to uselessly stash it away with no regard for God’s will. James isn’t saying it’s a sin to have a savings account or to have enough money to cover the unforeseen crises of life. But he’s reminding us that when the bottom falls out in life, money won’t be your greatest need. Money was never meant to be your savior. Your greatest need is still Jesus Christ.
In verse two and the first half of verse 3, James speaks in the past tense of the future judgment against the wicked rich: “Your riches have rotted and your garments have become moth-eaten. 3Your gold and your silver have rusted…” This is the prophetic use of the past tense to describe an event in the future that is guaranteed to take place… if repentance doesn’t occur.
The riches to which James refers may involve perishable items, like fruit and vegetables. Some of the wealthy would hoard large amounts of food to protect themselves against a change in prices or a famine. Even though they could never consume so much food, they would rather let it rot in their pantry than give it to their starving brethren who had nothing. These food riches have rotted, James says. Then he moves to their clothes: “and your garments have become moth-eaten.” Wealth was also measured by the clothing one wore. But the more garments one had, the more moths had to plunder. So James is essentially asking these unrighteous hoarders of wealth, what’s the point of feeding moths?
From rotting food, to moth-eaten clothes, he turns to rusting metals. “Your gold and your silver have rusted; and their rust will be a witness against you and will consume your flesh like fire. It is in the last days that you have stored up your treasure!” Rusted coinage was likely because precious metals in the Roman Empire contained so many alloys. The rust eventually made the coins useless. But the larger point of James is that whether they have alloys or not, on the day of judgment, all of this hoarded wealth will be absolutely useless. It will serve as a witness against those who loved and trusted it so much and it will consume their flesh like fire.
Not just the rusted coins, but also the rotten food and the moth-eaten clothes – all will witness against the hoarders. After witnessing against them before the throne of God, this same wealth will then serve as executioner. “It will consume your flesh like fire.” This is symbolic for James of the final judgment in hell. It reveals hell to be a place of conscious, physical torment. Since the word flesh is in the plural form, it shows that James is addressing the wicked rich individually, not just collectively. After judging them for their useless hoarding, second…
II. God will judge the unrighteous wealthy for their unjust exploitation (4).
This is the subject of verse four. Listen to the unjust exploitation in these words: “Behold, the pay of the laborers who mowed your fields, and which has been withheld by you, cries out against you; and the outcry of those who did the harvesting has reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.”
James has just told us that this wealth was uselessly hoarded, but not only that: verse four reveals that it was garnered through unjust exploitation. The actual pay of the laborers is here personified as if God hears the voice of the money; because He does! It’s the voice of money held hostage when its rightful possessor suffers deprivation because of its absence. Implied in verse four is a contractual agreement to do so much labor in exchange for so much pay. Such contracts were always specific, not vague.
Like Jesus’ parable of the Vineyard owner: “One day’s work for one denarius.” In this parable, everyone got a denarius. But some got a denarius for considerably less work than those who came early and worked all day. Many were given more than they had earned. But no one was given less than they had earned. The unrighteous wealthy in James were giving less than the righteous amount. The labor was done according to the agreement, but the remuneration for that work was unrighteously deficient.
The word “behold” at the beginning of verse four is an exclamation. It displays the shock James wants his readers to feel at this abuse. The NIV says “Look!”; NKJV begins with the word “Indeed!” The word “withheld” is translated from the perfect tense of the verb which reveals that at least part of the laborers’ money was completely withheld and not merely delayed. So these unrighteous landowners had no intention of honoring their agreement with the laborers.
James says this pay “cries out against you” which literally means it shouts, it screams at your injustice before God. Not only does James say the Lord hears this cry, but it has reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth! This is a military term for the Lord of Armies. God is revealed as the Commander of an innumerable host of avenging angels who will execute swift and overwhelming justice on behalf of His defrauded people. Then…
III. God will judge the unrighteous wealthy for their selfish indulgence (5).
Verse five: “You have lived luxuriously on the earth and led a life of wanton pleasure; you have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter.”
The word translated “luxuriously” has the literal meaning of “softness”. Because of their ill-gotten wealth, they have lived soft lives; they’ve become indifferent to the things of God and have adopted a leisurely recreational lifestyle based on comfort, extravagance, and entertainment.
Then he uses the phrase “wanton pleasure” in the NASB. It describes a reckless hedonism where a person strives so hard to please himself that he becomes consumed with self-absorption. It leads to physical, moral and spiritual bondage to the thing pursued. James warns the unrighteous wealthy they’ve been too smart by half: “you have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter.” They’re like the mindless livestock who fill their bodies with indulgence, consuming and consuming, until they realize they’re the object of consumption! Their judgment will be like the destruction of fattened calves in a slaughterhouse… only for them, the slaughter never ends.
One commentator writes: “Blind to heaven, deaf to warnings of hell, insensitive to the impending day of slaughter and judgment, the unrepentant, selfish, indulgent hoarders stumble blindly to their doom. Unless they repent, James warns, they will experience eternal damnation.” Fourth…
IV. God will judge the unrighteous wealthy for their ruthless acquisition of wealth (6).
That’s verse six: “You have condemned and put to death the righteous man; he does not resist you.”
This is likely a reference to an unjust use of the judicial system by the wealthy against the poor. James already mentioned this situation in 2:6 where he asked: “Is it not the rich who oppress you and personally drag you into court?” So apparently the judicial system in James’ day was not blind to wealth or social status.
Justice is supposed to be blind, but not stupid. The blindness is to external factors such as wealth, social status, skin color, education level, and even creed. So even if the judge has the same creed as the defendant and the defendant is in the wrong, then justice demands that the judge side in favor of the plaintiff, regardless of his agreement on external considerations. That wasn’t happening in James 5. There’s was a ruthlessness in this way of condemning and judicially murdering the poor and righteous man who cannot even make a case or answer the charges. “He does not resist you.” This implies that the defrauded poor believers could not stand up against the charges. Although they were innocent and persecuted, they couldn’t “afford” justice in the courts of greedy men.
God says through James that He will judge the unrighteous wealthy if they do not hear His warning and immediately repent of their misplaced faith. Let’s pray.
(c) Charles Kevin Grant
June 13, 2006