your feet out of respect for God's Word turning your Bibles to James chapter 5 the epistle of James the half-brother of Jesus the first pastor of the church in Jerusalem James chapter 5 verses 13 through 18 his brother burn comes to give a public reading of the Word of God James chapter 5 verses 13 through 18 thank God for his word Is anyone among you suffering? Then he must pray. Is anyone cheerful? He is to sing praises. Is anyone among you sick? Then he must call for the elders of the church, and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. Then he prayed again. The sky poured rain, and the earth produced its fruit." Amen. Although as we dive down deep into this passage this morning that we may understand a little bit more about the communion of saints. I pray God that you give me an anointing and an unction that I will preach this rightly and fully and that you will give those that you have gathered here today, those who are watching this right now by the means of the internet and those who will watch this at some later time, eyes to see, ears to hear and a heart to believe. Lord, I pray that your grace will defeat all unbelief. and that the gospel will triumph in our area, and that you will get yourself a people who are zealous for good works. In Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. To the glory of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, amen. I told you before that there's three things in real estate you need to always keep in mind, and that's location, location, and location. And there's three things in biblical interpretation that you need to always keep in mind, and that's context, context, context. The passage that Brother Verne just read to you is one of the most misunderstood passages in the entire Bible. Very few people in the modern church comprehend this passage correctly or fully. Now, I just said that, so that makes it true. No, it's true, and that's why I said it. Well, how do you know it's true, Brother Blair? Well, the proof of that misunderstanding is found in the little bottles of oil that are found near the front of the church or behind the pulpit. And when there is a sick person in the midst, they are encouraged to obey what verse 14 seems to say. Is anyone among you sick? Then he must call for the elders of the church and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the act of going down to the front of the church is what many believe is the same as calling for the elders of the church. And the pastor or other leader will retrieve that small bottle of olive oil and put a small dab of oil on the sick person, usually on the forehead. Some people make a sign of the cross on the forehead. And he will then lay hands on that person and pray that God will heal them physically. And that is done in the hopes of receiving the biblical promise found in verse 15. And the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him. And yet, the overwhelming majority of people who have the oil placed on them and are prayed for like this are not healed. And that is not my opinion. That is a factual reality. But then in an amazing demonstration of confusion, The sick person will go back to their seat most of the time without being healed, while everybody sings praises to God as though a healing has occurred. And then they will do it over and over and over again. I have not only personally witnessed this myself, I actually participated in this for several decades earlier in my walk with Jesus. But even then I questioned why we were doing this when it was obvious that it wasn't working. First of all, there are very few churches here on the Mississippi Gulf Coast that even have elders in them. And that is a real problem if obedience to this passage will be carried out. But fewer than that even understand what elders are, why they are important. Secondly, if we're going to strive to obey this passage in James, we need to define several words or phrases correctly and in context. meaning that we understand what James meant as he was moved by God the Holy Spirit to write them down 2,000 years ago and not what those words and phrases might mean to us today. But then we must try to understand what James meant when God the Holy Spirit, through him, gave us this promise at the end of verse 15, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him. So are we now supposed to believe that there are two different ways of being saved, one through hearing the gospel, believing the gospel, and obeying the gospel, and another way of having elders anoint us with oil and praying over us? Is that what James is teaching here? No, it's not. Now, inside the Roman religious system, they have what they call the sacrament of extreme unction. And that term extreme has to do with final or last, while the term unction has to do with an anointing or an anointing with oil. So their sacrament of extreme unction is the final or last anointing with oil that deathly ill people receive from the priest. And this is also known as last rites. Now, I'm very critical of Rome because they have fabricated so many doctrines that lead people astray, and they don't have the right to do that. But in this case, they actually tried to be biblical about this. But in their effort to be biblical, they misinterpreted this passage. And so today, the sacrament of extreme unction, or last rites, is far removed from what God the Holy Spirit moved on James to write down. But then early in the 18th century, the group that came out of John Wesley's teaching, they called them Methodists, took this very bad interpretation of James 5, 13 through 18 from the Romans, and they adopted it as their own. And then in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Pentecostal movement took that same bad interpretation from the Methodists and carried it forward into their churches, and that is how it spread. But for us to understand this passage correctly this morning requires that we take out or that we exegete of the scriptures what God the Holy Spirit put into them. Nothing more, nothing less. But we also have to do this in context with what was going on with James and the Christian church at the time that James wrote this, around 49 AD, or again, we're gonna get off base. First of all, this passage is not primarily about physical healing. What God the Spirit moved on the first pastor of the church in Jerusalem to write here is about the power of prayer in general. And that is why James said this at the end of verse 16 in all of 17 and 18, the effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain. And it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. Then he prayed again and the sky poured rain and the earth produced its fruit. being three years and six months with the drought, either God gave that directly to James as he wrote that down or there was some other information beside the book of Kings or the both of the Kings that we find in our Bibles today because the Old Testament doesn't tell you it's three years and six months. The only way we know it was three and a half years is because of what James tells us in the New Testament. So that's really an amazing statement that James makes there. But this passage is also about the unity of the spirit and the unity of the faith and the communion of saints. And that's why James said this in verses 14 and then again in 16. Is anyone among you sick? Then he must call for the elders of the church and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. Therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. So James 5, 13 through 18 is also about the power of godly unity, working through believers, through prayer and acts of kindness to help other believers overcome and defeat both sin and spiritual weakness. In other words, this passage is about overcoming both sin and spiritual weakness through the power of prayer and unity among the believers. And that makes James 5, 13 through 18 to be a one another passage. So let's get into it and look again at verse 13. Is anyone among you suffering? then he must pray. Is anyone cheerful? He is to sing praises. So right off the bat, the correct context of what James is teaching in this passage is how genuine believers are supposed to respond to suffering. He asked, is any among you suffering? And this reflects the reality of life as a believer back in the first century when suffering was everywhere. But specifically, the saints in Jerusalem in the first century, where James had become the first pastor, were experiencing horrific suffering at the hands of evil men. They were treated as evil betrayers by the Jews, and they were treated as insurrectionists by the occupying Roman army. So physical beatings were common. Also many believers in Jerusalem were in prison for their faith in Jesus, where they were treated far worse than an animal. And while in prison, they were beaten, starved, and isolated from their families for extended periods of time. And the physical bodies of some of those suffering saints needed medical attention. and had given in to the temptation to feel abandoned while some had even sinned against God and had denied the Lord, betrayed other believers and had renounced their faith in Jesus. Now, there are two problems today. Now, as I just read that, I realized that most people today, if I was to walk up and tell people that people had sinned because by the amazing, by the horrific suffering that they went through, they had denied the Lord, they'd look at me like something was wrong with me for saying that something was wrong with them because they sinned by denying the Lord, even though they were being beaten. And they'd say, what do you mean, Brother Blair? They were being beaten. Who could withstand that? And that's why I'm saying this right now. There are two problems today that cause many people who attend the modern church to simply not relate to that situation that James was addressing here. Number one, it is hard for many of us to even imagine how awful the daily life of believers was back in the first century. But number two, it is hard for many of us to understand why it would be sinful for a person who is suffering to deny the Lord. and the ignorance of the first one causes the second one. We must try to understand, beloved, that the normal daily life in Israel in the first century was terrible. It was far worse, the daily life of those living in Rome. There was little or no running water, and the sanitary systems that were in place were both primitive and almost useless. Whatever shelters were there were of poor quality, usually with no insulation and dirt floors. Death was everywhere. Dead bodies were literally lying on the side of the streets. Poverty was everywhere, and so beggars were everywhere. So the primary topic of discussion was finding the next meal. Jewish children were being routinely abused and raped by the Roman soldiers. Women were afforded little dignity or comfort. Sickness was everywhere. Leprosy was rampant. But other diseases that are seldom if ever seen or heard about today were common. Remember that by the time Jesus walked through the streets, healing the sick, raising the dead, casting out demons, and preaching the gospel, Israel had been occupied and brutally dominated by one Gentile pagan country after the other for over 300 years. And so they literally seethed in their hatred of the Romans, and they prayed, asking God to destroy them were common. while thoughts of freedom dominated their lives. And that's why the average Jew of the first century was not looking for a Messiah to come and forgive them for their sins. A remnant of Jewish people were looking for that. But the average Jew in Israel in the first century, they were not looking for a Messiah to come and forgive them. They were looking for a military warrior who would utterly destroy the Roman occupying force and return the promised land to the Jews. I was in Mandeville Thursday night and one of the guys at the Bible study asked me, he said, why did Judas betray the Lord? And I said, well, first of all, Judas was never saved. But secondly, Judas got completely disillusioned with Jesus, as a lot of people did about Jesus, because he wasn't acting the way they thought the Messiah was supposed to act. Now, before we condemn them, we need to try to step in their shoes. Do you understand that Jesus never said a bad word about the Roman soldiers, ever? In fact, he told the Jewish believers, if a Roman soldier slaps you on the one cheek, turn to him the other also. That's not a philosophical statement. That's a literal statement that the Roman soldiers were slapping down Jewish men in front of their wives and children to humiliate them and daring them to pray to their God that God would kill them. and they mocked the Jews. They went into the temple and they slew pigs and put pig blood all over the altar. They walked right beside a Jewish man as he was walking with his wife and children, mocking him in his ear, talking to him, where's your God? How come your God's not defending you? And so Jesus came and said, if one commands you to walk with him one mile, walk with him two. And they were ripping the coats off the Jewish men and mocking them, taking their clothing off. And Jesus said, if he takes your coat, give him your cloak also. Now, the Jews that weren't really believing in God, they didn't think that was funny. They don't think that's funny right now when they read those things. They think that's horrible that Jesus would have said something like that. They didn't want to love the Romans. They wanted them to die. So you have to understand the mindset of the average Jew. They were not looking for a Messiah. And look, you can argue with me all day long if you want to about this. Go talk to some Orthodox Jews that understand Jewish life in the first century, and they'll tell you that. That's how I found out about it. It's amazing how little they were trusting in God in the first century. They had become almost completely pagan in their religion, believing that angels gave birth to their wives, that angels made it rain, that angels caused the thunder, that angel caused the rain. And so they were praying to angels. And that's why the writer of Hebrews in the first couple of chapters went to great lengths to tell them that Jesus is superior to the angels. That's why he did that. to correct the belief of the Jewish people who were wayward in their beliefs. And look, they had gone 300 years with Gentiles putting their boot on their neck, the Greeks, the Babylon, the Greeks, the Assyrians, and then the Romans. And they were tired of being subjected to this. Where is God? Why has God abandoned us? And so they weren't looking to be liberated from sin, they were looking to be liberated from pagans. And that's not the same thing, right? Now, it is commonly thought that Christians were persecuted by the Romans for worshipping Jesus. That's not true. The Romans were polytheistic, so they worshipped multiple gods. The Romans couldn't have cared less what or who a Christian worshipped. What they persecuted the Christians for was almost exclusively for them refusing to confess openly that even though Jesus was God in human flesh, Caesar was the supreme God who was over all the other gods. And this is why Paul said, you must confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord. He's talking about in public, out loud. Now you'd think he's picking a fight. And many, many, many believers were arrested and killed because they confessed openly that Jesus was God. The fear was that the, their fear was that the Christians were not going to remain loyal to the Roman government and would seek to overthrow it. So they thought that the Christians were cannibals because they ate the flesh of Jesus and drank his blood. They thought the Christians were homosexuals because they gave each other a holy kiss. Well, they wouldn't have a problem with the homosexuality part. And then they thought they were insurrectionists because they worship Christ alone and not Caesar. That's why the government of Rome was hostile toward Christianity. So the most common crime that caused the Romans to persecute, arrest, try, convict, and sentence the little Christs was insurrection. It was the Jewish rulers who persecuted the saints for blasphemy and for heresy and for trying to overthrow the Mosaic Law. Now the prison system in Jerusalem back in the first century was harsh, brutal, unsanitary and deadly. The prisoners were usually kept below the street level where they seldom if ever saw daylight. The city sewer ran right through the prison and the containers that prisoners used the bathroom in doubled as their bowl for eating. The prisoners were routinely beaten, tortured, and mistreated. Prisoners were usually chained to the wall with their arms above their head in a sitting position, with their feet and legs sticking out in front of them. And at night, the rats came out and bit and licked the feet, arms, hands, and faces of the prisoners, passing on whatever disease they may have had. and a demonstration of the love of God in spite of the dangerous and inhuman realities of the prisons. Believers on the outside voluntarily came and visited with the prisoners, offering hope, prayer, food, and scripture to empower them to remain faithful until they could either be released All of the passages in the New Testament that speak about visiting those in prison are about visiting believers who have been thrown into prison precisely because they were believers. Now, I'm all in favor of a prison ministry. I was part of that effort at the Harrison County Jail for many years and preached God's Word every Lord's Day morning at 7 a.m. And I didn't stop because I don't believe in it, because I do. I stopped for no other reason than I simply can't do any more than what I'm doing right now. So I pray and hope that some of you will pick up the mantle and herald God's word to the prisoners at the Harrison County Jail every week. One of the members of this church was actually saved while in prison because somebody had the burden to give those prisoners the gospel. But few, if any, of the prisoners at the Harrison County Jail are in there because they're Christians. Most, if not all of them, are incarcerated because they became criminals and violated the teachings of both Jesus and the Bible, as well as the law of this land. But in the first century in Jerusalem, genuine Christians were routinely rounded up and thrown into prison, usually without even a trial, because they were bearing godly fruit and because the authorities, both Jewish and Gentile, considered them to be a threat to their way of life. The family would hear a knock at the door in the middle of the night. Soldiers would take the father of that family away, and they never saw or heard from him again. And those beautiful, faithful saints were horribly treated and usually killed without so much as the opportunity to defend themselves. And as they were beaten and tortured, their bodies became racked with pain. Cuts, scars, muscles, ligaments, tendons, and bones were broken and pulled out of place, and some were no longer able to walk or even raise their arms. So genuine, kind, loving saints would voluntarily go to those dungeons and sit with the prisoners, praying with them, encouraging them to remain faithful no matter what happened. Why? Because in Matthew 10, 32 through 39, Jesus said, therefore everyone confesses me before men, I will confess him before my Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies me before men, I will also deny him before my Father who is in heaven. What does that mean? That means you're not going to go to heaven if you deny the Lord. I do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father and a daughter against her mother and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man's enemies will be the members of his household. He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. He that loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. and he who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. But he who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for my sake will find it." Now usually when this passage is read and taught today, especially here in America, it is minimized to the degree that it loses its meaning. Jesus was not taught that we have to bear in the sense of a wayward child or a bad boss at work or a low-paying job or a sore back. Jesus was talking about a literal cross where believers and then died by crucifixion. Over 30,000 believers died by crucifixion alongside of genuine criminals in the first century. And Jesus was also teaching that we cannot and we must not love anyone or anything more or even the same as we love him. And Jesus was talking about genuine saints losing their lives as a punishment from evil men for no other reason than they're saved. And Jesus was also teaching that as we are persecuted, if we deny him, if we turn on him, if we betray him or his word or the other believers of the church, then he will deny us, meaning we will not go to heaven. Now, people today would respond, but Brother Blair, you teach that salvation is eternal. So if they were truly saved, they will go to heaven, even if they deny the Lord. But the response that I would give to that statement is the same as the response that Jesus, the apostles, and the leaders of the early church would have given. If you had been truly saved, you would never deny the Lord. The indwelling Holy Spirit would empower you to remain faithful unto death. And so the fact that you did deny the Lord proves that you have not been born again, even if you have been tortured. Now, this is not about being brave. This is about being faithful. This is about keeping covenant with Jesus about your salvation. I would think that everybody who's ever faced death in prison was afraid. I think every soldier on the face of the earth that goes into battle is afraid. That's not the issue. Fear is not the issue. Faithfulness is the issue. Now, I realize that I'm in the minority position about this issue, especially with the membership of the modern church, but I would say to you that my position is biblical. And those who believe that denying the Lord is no different than any other sin are not biblical. And it isn't even close. Oh, come on, Brother Blair, you're just wound too tight. Who among us would remain faithful if we were tortured? Well, the answer to that question is the millions and even tens of millions of believers in the early church who absolutely refused to deny the Lord or to betray Him, even though they were flayed alive, hung, stabbed, pulled apart by horses, drowned, had their heads cut off, or were eaten alive by animals. Paul, Peter, John, Philip, and those listed in Hebrews 11 are examples we can actually read about in the Bible who were treated horribly and painfully and yet remained faithful to the end. I suggest to you that what causes people in the 21st century who say they're saved to treat denying Jesus no differently than running a red light is that primarily they're already neck deep in worldliness and have no idea about biblical and historic Christianity. If people would simply read church history, they would find out that the early church had to actually convene a council to determine whether to receive those who denied the Lord because their lives were at risk back into fellowship again. For example, in 250 AD, the Christian church called them the lapsi in Latin, which meant the fallen. Those who feared for their lives or who demonstrated cowardice by denying Jesus during persecution or imprisonment had to go through a very serious vetting process to be allowed back into membership again. So the effort to encourage and strengthen believers who were already in prison was a real important activity among the people of the early church. And so in his inspired letter, the half-brother of Jesus turned to those suffering saints and offered them comfort and hope. Is anyone among you sick? Now, the word that was translated here is sick. is a Greek word which means to be tired because of exertion, to labor to the point of extreme weariness, to be exhausted, to be discouraged because of weariness. What this word does not mean is suffering from a disease or an illness. So this is not about being sick in the normal way we use that word today. James was not describing someone who was suffering from an illness. This word was used to describe someone who had grown physically weak and feeble, as well as someone who had become discouraged because of the extreme physical exertion, like being beaten and tortured in prison. Now to prove my point, beside this one verse in James, this same Greek word was only used one other time in the entire New Testament. And that's in Hebrews 12 and three, where the unknown writer said, for consider him who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. That's the same word. It was translated here as weary. The Greek word that the unknown writer actually wrote down was translated here into English as weary. So we can see that by translating this Greek word as sick in James 5 and 14, a world of misunderstanding and actually an entire false doctrine by the Roman religious system was developed unnecessarily that was then passed down to the Methodists and then to the Pentecostals. So James speaks here of a spiritual weak and defeated believers who had suffered horribly at the hands of evil men. And so when James said this in verse 15, the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick, the English word restore comes from the Greek word sozo, which does not refer to physical healing either. This word is almost commonly translated as save throughout the New Testament, which is exactly the way the King James Version translates it. So in verse 15 in the KJV says, and the prayer face shall save the sick. And I was, I cut my teeth on the King James coming up. And so I said, save the sick. That's what it says. So they got saved. That's what I believe. That's what it says. It is what it says. That's not what it means. And so because of a bad translation and real sloppy exegesis, people were actually taught for many years that physically sick people could enter into salvation itself through having oil dabbed on their heads and the prayers of the elders. But that makes no sense because the scriptures are crystal clear that salvation is entered into by grace alone through faith alone and the finished work of Christ alone and not by having oil applied or through the prayers of the elders or anybody else. Now we can and we pray that God will save people, yet every individual must be first sovereignly chosen by God the Father and then be sovereignly drawn to Jesus by God the Holy Spirit or they will never be saved. We have to understand that neither the elders nor anyone else can pray salvation onto others. If I could do that, my family would all be saved, I promise you. My daughter came to me one time and said, you're just trying to force me to go to church. I said, amen to that. If I thought I could shove Jesus down your throat and you miss hell, I would do that in the heart. I'd tie you with a rope and throw you in the back of the truck and tie you to the pew in church. I would do that. I can't because that doesn't work. But if I thought that, I would do that. Trust me. Because that beats hell every day, right? The answer is that while the Greek word sozo means saved in many places, that's not all it means. This same word is also translated in other places as delivered, or rescued, or restored. So the idea that James is trying to convey here is that most of the time when a believer is being horribly persecuted or beaten, he must make sure that he himself is praying. But when he is beaten to the point of exhaustion, when that exhaustion has so weakened him physically that he is denying Jesus and renouncing the truth, or is contemplating doing so, he should then call for those men who are spiritually strong in the Lord, who are the elders. And that is exactly what John the Baptist did in Matthew 11. Now again, this is because John had a wrong eschatology. He did not understand what Jesus was supposed to do when he got here. And so he got thrown in prison because he condemned adultery on behalf of a king and they threw him in prison and they were gonna cut his head off. And Jesus never even visited the prison. Isn't that odd? And so John started wavering in his faith. Now was John being beaten? All I can say is probably. because they routinely beat people that were in prison just because it's Tuesday. They didn't have to have a reason. One time they dragged the disciples out in the courtyard and the disciples proved their innocence and they said, let them go. Well, right before they let them go, they still beat them. So they beat people all the time back then. So was John being beaten? Probably. and he had grown weak and he was contemplating, he was crawfishing about whether Jesus was really the Messiah. And so he sent two of his disciples and they asked Jesus, are you really the Messiah? Do we need to look for somebody else? Now, why would a person ask that question? It's not working out the way I thought it's supposed to work out. You're supposed to come and call fire down from heaven and kill everybody and get me out of here. And Jesus never even went there. And then Jesus related what Isaiah the prophet prophesied about the Messiah to those two guys and said, tell John this. And then he ended it with this. And this is really important for me and you today. Blessed are they who were not offended in me. Now this is something that I've learned after being on a journey with Jesus for over 50 years. Jesus is determined to offend you. you are going to be offended with something. Another Christian, a sermon, a theological issue, or a verse in the Bible even. And it's not gonna sit well with you and it's gonna crawl all over your flesh and you won't be able to sleep at night. and it will drive you away from Jesus as verses in the Bible have done for literally millions of people throughout the 2,000 year history of the church. There is a sea of people out there that were raised in church who no longer go because they do not believe what they read in the Bible. And some very famous people like Oprah Winfrey and like many editors of major newspapers used to be Christians. They denounced the faith and said, our God would not ever be like this. Oprah got bent out of shape at the Bible because it said God was a jealous God. She said, not my Jesus. Right. Well, she got a wrong Jesus. She needs to get the Bible Jesus. Amen. Just tell you, the Bible has offended these people. So Jesus said, blessed are they who were not offended in me. So be careful. Look, you can get offended at me and be fine with Jesus, but you better not get offended at Jesus, right? And he never did go see John and they killed him. So he's telling John, I'm not coming, you're gonna die, is that okay? And the answer needs to be, yes, Lord, it's okay. I'm just saying. He didn't release James from prison. They cut his head off. But he released somebody over here. He moved on this one, raised this woman's son up. That woman over there, her son died. What's the difference? This woman didn't believe and that woman... No, the Bible doesn't say that. People have taught that. The Bible doesn't say that. It says both of them had a good report through faith. This is the sovereignty of God, beloved. This is the sovereignty of God. This is the sovereignty of God. And it's real wonderful when we're talking about getting saved and all that, but it's not so wonderful when we're talking about suffering. It is God's will that people suffer. It is God's will. And it's God's will sometimes that they never end their suffering, that they die by suffering. Now, they wouldn't trade it for all the money in the world right now, because they're in the glories of heaven. But they had a horrible life. Only in America do we think that if we get saved, we'll be millionaires. That's only true in America. And sadly, we're importing that mess over into the churches in Africa now. This is exactly what John the Baptist did in Matthew 11 when he sent two of his disciples to Jesus to make sure that Jesus was, in fact, the Messiah. And that tells us that John had grown spiritually weak while in prison and needed confirmation that his declaration about Jesus in John 1, verse 29, was true. Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. He'd already said that back then, and he's already crawfishing. That doesn't make John bad. That makes him a human, right? So God is making a way to help those people. So the elders will come to that desperate with him. Those elders will restore him spiritual strength and be forgiving. I worked for 10 years with a man at Ingalls who was a prisoner of war and it was in the baton death march with the Japanese. And he was a prisoner, out of the four years of World War II, he was a prisoner for three and a half years. And he went from 270 pounds to 90 pounds during his incarceration. Every other day, they had a rusty tomato can, half of a tomato can, it was rusted, of uncooked rice and a little piece of meat with maggots on it. They had that every other day. And he said, after a while, people would kill each other for another bite to eat. Human beings resorted to being animals. And they would catch a rat, rip his head off, and eating fur and all right there, because they were starving to death. It drove them mad. Now, that's what happens to human beings made in the image of God when you starve them. That's what happens. They forget all about etiquette and all that. So when you listen to the richest man in the world at that time, John Jacob Astor, and he had all the, he could have built 10 Titanic's and there's not enough lifeboats. and he let two orphan children take his place on the lifeboat and he went down with the ship. You know why? Because he was raised in the church. That's what Christianity does for people. So the elders will come to that desperate and weakened saint of God and they will pray with him. And if he has already sinned by renouncing the truth out of fear or in order to avoid more beatings, those elders will restore him back into spiritual strength and beg God to forgive him. And the promise of God is that the Lord himself will raise up or encourage that pitiful soul. Now the Greek word that was translated into English here is, in verse 15, is raise up, also means to awaken or to arouse. So James is teaching here that through the righteous prayers of godly elders, God will restore or awaken or arouse his battered sheep's enthusiasm and trust in him. Now you experience that a lot during the week when you get discouraged or something bad happens and you hear a song or you read a verse in the Bible or somebody, and it touches the faith that you already have, and it stimulates your faith, and you went from being on the bottom of the boat to the top of the boat in 10 seconds. You know why? Because you're born again, and you heard the language of faith, and it restored you. That's what James is talking about here. Now, as an important footnote, James also says that if one of those spiritually weak believers has committed sins, they will be forgiven him. And this provides further evidence that this entire passage has nothing to do with physical healing. The Bible nowhere teaches that an elder's prayers can forgive sin. God forgives sin. God alone forgives sin. So the elders simply pray for that sinning saint that God will forgive him. Well, there are at least two reasons for us not to think that what many churches do today is in sincerely trying to obey. And I think they're sincere. I was sincere when I did it. I'm not throwing rocks at anybody. I'm just saying that's not what James was talking about. First of all, almost no church today actually anoints the physically sick person with oil anymore, at least not in a genuine biblical sense. Back in the Old Testament, when someone was anointed with oil, the leaders took the horn of an animal, hollowed it out, and filled it with olive oil. And when the individual was called forward, they poured the oil over the top of his head and allowed the oil to run down his entire body. That's what anointing means. It's not about your brain or your face or your ears or your thinking capabilities or even your heart. It's about your entire body. Now keep that in the back of your mind. It is to be on the entire physical, literal body of the individual. Okay. Around 1,000 years before Jesus was born, God the Holy Spirit moved on King David to write Psalm 133, which gives us insight into what real, true, genuine, sure enough anointing looked like in the Old Testament. And it says, a song of the sense of David. Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity. It is like the precious oil upon the head coming down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard, coming down upon the edge of his robes. It is like the dew of Hermon coming down upon the mountains of Zion, for there the Lord commended the blessing life forever. So it goes down the head, down the face, down the beard, down the clothes, down to the bottom. You've never seen that in church probably. I've actually seen that where we tried to do that and I got in trouble and had to buy the guy his clothes. He got mad at me because I ruined his suit. Now, I'm not splitting hairs, and I'm not nitpicking. But those precious people who sincerely put a small bit of oil on the forehead of physically sick people are not anointing anybody in either a Old or New Testament sense. At best, they are dabbing. But the reason people stop pouring oil like they did in the Bible was not because of some theological or religious or biblical response. They're closed. What illustrates the inconsistency of this activity is that they want to be, it says the Lord. And it says that. Yeah, it does. It doesn't mean that, but it also says the Lord. So if you're going to be picky about that part, be picky about that part too. But let me suggest to you that it doesn't mean any of that anyway. And this is what I go, this is what I tell you about symbolism versus reality in the Bible. What David and all the other Old Testament saints were doing by anointing people with olive oil was to symbolize what God was going to do with every believer in the New Covenant when it got here. You see, the oil represented God the Holy Spirit and his spiritual anointing came to an individual and remained. You see, believers under the inferior Old or First Covenant did not have the third person of the Trinity abiding continually inside of them. God the Holy Spirit came down upon them, He moved on them, He empowered them, but then He went back up and left them. The Holy Spirit It never remained with believers 24-7 when the Old Covenant was enforced. That's why God told John the Baptist, when you see the Spirit of God come down and remain, then you're going to know that's the one. It's strictly a New Covenant reality. But once again, the reality of the New Covenant comes. Once the reality of the New Covenant comes, the symbolism of the Old Covenant becomes obsolete and is no longer needed. Why would anyone need a symbol if the reality is here? Why do you need a prophet, who is at best a sinner, speaking periodically on God's behalf, when you've got the infallible, inerrant, inspired word of the living God that is perfect? You don't need a prophet anymore. And to suggest that you do is to deny this. Understand that. Even those who believe in continuationism, they'll tell you that the office of apostle, most of them will say, the office of apostle has ceased. Well, you can't have it both ways. If the office of apostle has ceased, then you also are a cessationist. What apostles did that nobody else did before them or since them. And that's the production of this book. So I know people don't mean it like this, but to believe that God speaks through people today and gives new information that they need to have, like doctrine, how heaven looks, little boys are taken up, oh heaven, it's got a warehouse over here and it's got this and blue and green. If all that's true, then what is this for? It's a doorstop or a paperweight, but it can't be, the canon of scripture is either complete or it's not. Now, the Jehovah's Witnesses say it's not. And they boldly say, we produce 127 pages of inspired truth every week. They don't mince words about it. Mohammed said the Quran is a further revelation. The Mormons say the Book of Mormon is a further revelation of Jesus. No, it's not. Because this is finished. Because if it's not finished, you can't tell anybody how to get saved, because you don't have all the information yet. You have no idea whether you're saved or not, because there may be further information coming two years from now that nobody knows about yet. Nothing is certain if this book is not finished. That's how important the truth is. In fact, if we are not careful, we are sinning against God by holding on to the symbols, signs, and types of the old covenant that the old covenant offered those saints. Here's what the unknown writer said about this in Hebrews 8, verse 13. When he, talking about God, said a new covenant, he has made the first obsolete. What does that mean? You don't keep using it. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear. OK, well, Brother Blair, then you believe that we don't need the Old Testament. I didn't say that. I absolutely believe we do need the Old Testament today so we can find out what the New Testament means by what it says. If you don't know what the Old Testament taught, you have no idea that the New Testament is fulfilling anything. So we need both, but you gotta put them in their proper context. Okay, but what did James mean when he in Phalibe wrote that the elders were to come to the believer who had been made weak through his sufferings, and they are to anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord? All right, remember that medical services were very primitive back then, and so those elders come in mercy and love to that battered saint, and they will then take olive oil, which back in the first century was used by medical doctors as a healing agent, And the elders will physically rub that oil over the man's beaten body from his head to his feet and massage that oil into him as they pray." What good would that do? Well, remember, there were no antibiotics. There's no, there's no, what do you call that stuff that foams when you put it on a cut? Hydrogen peroxide didn't exist. There was no mercurochrome. They had olive oil and you just died. You just got infections and you just burned up with 112 degree fever and you just died. I mean, thank God. Look what God has done for us, beloved. Remember, there were no antibiotics back then. There were few, if any, remedies that were available for the physical body of a person who had suffered such horrific physical suffering. So in the first century, it was common that olive oil was used as a type of ancient liniment. And when it was anointed or rubbed over the entire body, it would bring some measure of physical relief. And in the process of those elders doing what they could to relieve the physical results of that inhuman suffering, they found out that this saint had sinned against God by renouncing Jesus or by denying their faith in him. They acted as agents of mercy and compassion and prayed for him and with him that God would forgive him so he could be brought back into a right relationship with God. Now, what are they doing? They're preparing this man to die. and preparing him to die correctly in the Lord, huh? But what they could not do was to set that man free from prison. What the elders could not do was to bring an end to his sufferings. So the reality is that this man was probably going to continue to suffer. His beatings would continue. The inhuman treatment would go on until he was dead. So asking God to forgive this man who, out of fear, had denied the Lord was to prepare him to meet with God when all of the pain of this life would finally stop. And what Paul is saying in his teaching about this subject, he said, they can only hurt you in this one life. They can't hurt you after this life is over. Hallelujah. But now look at the first part of the next verse. Therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. Now why in the world did James write this here in a passage about helping suffering saints? He's no longer addressing the man who is going through his terrible torture. He's not talking about preparing a suffering saint to meet God in right standing at his death. He's not even addressing the elders either. Beginning with this verse, James is now addressing all the other saints who were not being beaten, who were not facing immediate death, and who were safe and secure back at the church. And he told them, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another. And then he told them to do those two things, so this would happen, so that you may be healed, or restored, or aroused, or encouraged. Or the English word healed comes from the Greek word, I'm gonna say it, eaomai, eaomai. which does not mean physical healing either. This Greek word does not convey physical healing. In 1 Peter 2 and 24, the old fisherman said, that's not physical healing either, even though that's been taught. I should have said that. But this is all talking about restored, that you're restored because of Jesus' stripes. You're saved, in other words. The unknown writer put it like this in Hebrews 12, 12 and 13. Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble. Make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be pulled out of joint, but rather be healed. And James uses the same Greek word to refer to God's forgiveness, making the repentant believer spiritually whole again. This is talking about the same spiritual healing that the beaten man in prison was given by the elders. And this is also talking about the greatest evil, the most common sin, the biggest hindrance, the most certain failure that every single believer on earth and throughout all time has had to face, pride. You see, one of the reasons that God reveals something about one person is not merely to deal with that one person, because his sin, his failure, his struggle, his problem is probably very common with all believers. For example, in the book of Acts chapter 5, when God confronted Ananias and Sapphira about their lie and then killed them publicly, it was not to simply rid the church of a single liar or even a married couple who conceived an evil deed in their heart. What was also happening was that God was stopping others who were actually doing the same thing as Ananias and Sapphira or who were thinking about lying to God. And all of a sudden, they felt led not to do that. It's amazing how this works. You almost have a wreck, but not quite. I was with a guy, he was in the process of telling me he didn't believe in God. And so, a lady, it was a big crash in front of us, and I turned the car, and we went down in the ditch, and we're doing this. And the whole time we're spending, I'm singing praises to God, and he's saying, oh Jesus, oh Jesus, oh Jesus! I said, who are you talking to? You don't believe in him, hush! You're gonna die, go to hell, hush! What was also happening was that God was stopping others who were actually doing the same thing as Ananias and Sapphira, who were thinking about lying to God. And by God publicly confronting those two and taking the breath of life away from them, God was issuing mercy and forgiveness to all the others who were either sinning as much as Ananias and Sapphira or who were planning to do so. So while God was publicly judging sin and cleansing the church, he was also healing or restoring the others who were there that day who were slipping down into that same sin. But God was also healing and restoring all those countless millions of believers who down through the 21 centuries of church history were deceived into thinking they could sin in the same way. But as they read this account in Acts 5, they were brought under conviction, which brought about repentance and restoration. So the lock on your door is not about keeping bad people out. It is about keeping honest people honest. And so as they reach for the door and they turn it, and it's locked, uh-oh, I better get out of here. where if it was open, they'd have gone in. The difference between a person who is arrested and spends the rest of his life in jail, and most of us, is that thin. They got caught, and many of us didn't. That's the difference. Because we can't say we've never done anything wrong. Help us, Lord. See, I was talking about pride a while ago. You see that? See how it hurts? That's right. You see, there is nothing new under the heavens. There is no new sin that has not invaded the heart of countless millions, numbers of people and destroyed them. But there is also no new blessing from God either that he has not bathed tens of millions of other people with. We need to remember that the hero that God used to confront and defeat the heresy of modalism became the heretic in the battle against the full deity of Christ. Arius stood tall in defeating modalism but fell into horrific deception when it came to the full deity of Jesus. So a person does not have to be in prison getting beaten to become spiritually weak and sinful. What has tripped up others throughout history can also trip us up today. What has deceived others can deceive us. What is strengthened and blessed and empowered in many others. That's why we need each other. of the catalysts that will erupt upon this restoration, setting aside our pride in the fear of gossip, periodically confessing our sins to each other. So God's will for the church that Jesus is building and over which he alone is head is that we run together, that we cry together, rejoice together, pray together, learn together, sing together, suffer together, confess sin together so that we may be strengthened and blessed together. So far, isn't it amazing that God will put somebody in your church right next to you that just grates your soul like fingernails on a chalkboard? Isn't that amazing? If you didn't know any better, you'd think God did that on purpose. And you can move to Ohio and go into a church you don't even know the name of and sit on the pew and somebody just like that guy you're running from will sit right next to you. I promise you, that's God. That's God. Because while you're upset with that guy, it's on you. Something's wrong with you. And that's why God's allowing you to be upset. You see? See? Amen. That's when you know it's hitting. That's when you know it's hitting home. Everybody all of a sudden loses their voice. Laryngitis is spreading through the church. Amen. Hallelujah. God help us. And so in His mercy, God has given us several means. And please, Lord, obey the Bible. And two of those means of grace is prayer, confession, Now the word therefore in verse 15 marks a transition in the flow of thought. It is a legal term that means since all that I have said to you earlier is true, now therefore do this. Here James turns his attention away from the sins of those believers who have been defeated in the spiritual battle and now addresses the entire congregation as a whole, exhorting all believers to continue to confess their sins to one another and not wait until those sins drag them into the depths of utter spiritual defeat. And you don't know five churches on this coast that actually do this. There might not even be two churches on this coast that do this. And then the two who actually make an attempt at doing this, here's what you'll get. Well, pray for me, brother. I wanna be drawn closer to Jesus. That's not what this prayer meeting's about. You confess your sins, not your desires to be spiritually stronger. Well, I just don't think I'm as strong as I need to be in life. Cop out, cop out. You're full of pride and you can't stand to admit that you got sin in your life. So Jesus tells the church to do this. I love money. I love, I have loved money. I love it less now than I used to. I love the praise of men. I love it, I can't stand people to be mad at me. I'm confessing sin right now. There's times when I'm riding down the highway, I wanna pinch somebody's head off so bad. I've been studying God's holy word, the presence of the Lord. My grandchildren or even my children would have the audacity to interrupt me. I respond to them like they're killing somebody. I'll scream at them, I'll holler at them, I'll tell them to get out of here. And so they grow up thinking that a man studying the Bible is more vicious than somebody who's not studying the Bible, so maybe studying the Bible is not a very good idea to do. And I cause that. So I'm trying to think what else. For the first 15 years of our marriage, Rhonda and I had a horrible marriage. horrible. We didn't have a clue what to do. My parents couldn't help me because they had a terrible marriage. My wife's parents couldn't tell us because they had a terrible marriage. My pastor and his wife had a terrible marriage. Where am I supposed to go to get help? How am I supposed to learn what to do? I'm just telling you, there's a whole lot going on right now in churches right now that people just will not talk about, and that's not what the Bible teaches. If we're gonna be a church, if we're gonna be one another in the church, we have got this to do. Huh? And if any of us spills the beans out there to the world about what you learned in here, shame on you, you're sinning. Don't you dare gossip about your brothers and sisters out to the lost world. What goes on in here stays in here because we need serious restoration. We need help. I promise you there's men in this church that are neck deep in pornography. I promise you there is. I promise you there is. I promise you there's women in this church that there's many times, they just wish they weren't married. They wish to God they never married this guy. How in the world did I get hooked up with this joker? I promise you there is. That's real people. It's not all sparkle, sparkle, happy, happy all the time, right? Am I in the right church? Okay. dangerous to an isolated believer. You see, our sin always seeks to hide and remain secret, but God always wants sin exposed and dealt with in the light of God's word and in the power of the Holy Spirit through the loving unity of other believers. Therefore, James calls for mutual honesty, mutual confession, as believers pray for one another. At best, churches only can pray for one another. They can't pray for one another. like a shotgun shooting at the dark, hoping it hits some. But we don't really know what our brothers and sisters are going through, right? Unless they tell us. As I've told you, there are only two reasons why sin is not confessed, and that's pride and gossip. And both of those are sinful. Pride keeps the sinning believer from admitting they have, in fact, sinned, while gossip destroys the confidence that what is confessed among believers will stay in the church and not become the topic of the evening news out in the world. Developing and maintaining an ongoing, open, sharing, loving, and praying relationship with each other will help keep believers from bottoming out in their spiritual lives. Such relationships help give the spiritual strength that provides victory over sin. Who would be against that? And they also provide godly pressure to confess and forsake sins before they become overwhelming to the point of total spiritual defeat, anything public scandal. So when a couple in the church gets divorced, then you know that church has failed them. And the leadership has failed them, and they have failed each other. Because that should have been known way long before they went to see the lawyer. Huh? And it's usually not. Right? How did we get so messed up when we've got the Bible right in front of us? Yet one of the things that stops believers from obeying James is the thought that their prayers are not strong enough to actually help anyone. And so the first pastor of the Church of Jerusalem then teaches why the prayers of all genuine believers are powerful. And to do that, James first makes a very important statement. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. The English word effective translated from the Greek word from which our English word energy comes from. So effective prayers are prayers that are sincere, honest, truthful, and energetic. The phrase a righteous man has to do with all genuinely born again believers, who while certainly are not sinless, but are honestly striving to obey Jesus with joy. That tells us that weak prayers come from spiritually weak people, while strong prayers come from spiritually strong people. And we need to understand that spiritually strong people are not those who are strong in the 21st century American model of strength, but those who model the characteristics found in the Bible. Spiritually strong people are godly, humble, merciful people. They are people who forgive their enemies, who refuse to enact vengeance on those who have wronged them. Spiritually strong people are those who strive to obey Jesus with joy, those who see the commands of the Bible not as handicaps to their desires, but as paths to the fullness of their own joy. But we must also keep these words of James in context with what he's talking about. James is not talking about being spiritually strong in a general sort of way. Neither is he talking about being spiritually strong for the sake of being spiritually strong. Instead, James is teaching here that the energetic prayers of righteous people are a potent force in calling down the power of God for restoring weak and struggling believers to robust spiritual health. That is the context of James' teaching. And then to convince the saints at both the church in Jerusalem in the first century, as well as the covenant of peace church in the 21st, James gives us an example of the prophet Elijah. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours. So it begins this section by saying Elijah was a man with a nature like ours. In other words, Elijah was not any different from any other genuine believer. He suffered persecution, he was tempted, and periodically fell into sin, just like we do. But then James goes on to what the Old Testament teaches about how God used Elijah through prayer that accomplished much. But all of this victory through effective prayer hinges on all of us confessing sin and praying for one another. And so I beg you this morning. to ponder this biblical command and allow the power of unity to help overcome sin and spiritual weakness in all of us. Amen. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for understanding this passage in James that had been so misunderstood by so many for so long. Help us, God, to be that kind of people that will go to the weak and encourage those who are about to give up. to anoint them with oil in a biblical sense, to pray with them, to counsel with them, to encourage them. That's our covenant brother or sister, and we need to love them. And Lord, help us to be that kind of people, I pray in Jesus' name, amen.