ROTTING RICHES

JAMES 5:1-6

JULY 16, 2000

 

A cherished danger lurks the streets of our nation. It carries no weapon yet has been the means of destroying countless numbers. It utters no sound yet has caused endless talk. It has no life or breath yet is loved more than anything the eyes can behold. Simply put, the gravest danger facing Christians and non-Christians alike is abused wealth.

 

Scholars question whether James intended to upbraid wealthy Jewish landowners or to simply expose believers to the inherent dangers of wealth. Curtis Vaughan points out that his aim was not as much to awaken the rich, though that underlies his intent, but to make "wavering Christians" aware of the folly of admiring and seeking after riches. With most of the church living in abject poverty, the desire for wealth and its attainment could lure Christians away from their devotion to Christ and love of the body. So James issues a stinging charge to bring to reality the dangers bound up in the love of wealth.

 

The novelist and social reformer, Upton Sinclair, once read a paraphrase of this passage to a group of ministers, attributing its authorship to a noted anarchist agitator. The ministers were incensed by the language of these words and so enraged that they demanded the deportation of this social agitator! To their own shame, they were hearing the Word of God and did not even recognize it. Such is the danger and allurement of wealth [Kent Hughes, Faith that Works, 211].

 

Wrapped up in the negative is a positive message as well regarding riches. It is vital that Christians living in America learn to have a right view of wealth. Riches can be the source of immeasurable help to others or a snare that leads to eternal damnation. James' warnings help us to grapple with our own attitude and desires regarding wealth.

 

I. Wealth's wicked children

 

Wealth is not the enemy of James' assault, rather the misuse of wealth. For wealth itself is neutral. It can be used to provide for the poor, build orphanages, sustain missionaries, and distribute gospel literature. It can also find its way into the hands of those who would abuse others, indulge in sensuality, and control nations.

 

I asked an African scholar recently if there were any nations on the African continent that were not corrupt as far as their governments. He paused for a moment and responded, "No. Every country in Africa is corrupt." The chief culprit amidst the corruption is the hoarding of wealth for those in powers. A Kenyan pastor told me that their president, Daniel Moi, is known to have at least two billion dollars hidden in foreign bank accounts that he has skimmed and grabbed from the needy people of Kenya. He uses his power and position to hoard riches.

 

But we do not find corruption only in Africa. Is there a day that passes that our local newspaper does not record the story or stories of government and corporate officials engaged in money schemes? Grabbing more wealth seems to be the preoccupation of so many who find themselves in positions of power and responsibility.

 

We can easily point our fingers at those in positions of power. But James does not mean to skip the church to attack the world. The church suffers with the same problems that are found in the world, and that to our shame. While the scale of abuse may not reach the same level as that found in the world, abuse of wealth remains one of the strongest temptations among the multitudes calling themselves Christians. James' intention is to awaken us to the wicked realities that are born of abused wealth.

 

1. Hoarding

 

We live with news of billionaires and their lifestyles, often admiring from afar their opulence. A man like Bill Gates has more personal wealth than many countries combined. But we must not mistake James' statements on riches to be for only the most extremely wealthy. Of a certainty, compared to the balance of the world, all of us are wealthy. No, we cannot do all the things we might like or have the things we might desire. But our lifestyles and ability to obtain much of what we want in life put us into a category of wealthy. When you consider that it is not unusual for a man in South America or Africa or parts of Asia to make only $50-75 each month, then you must admit that our degree of resources far exceeds the rest of the world. I read that the average income in Mozambique, one of the world's poorest countries, is only $80 per year!

 

James aimed his direct assault at the wealthy landowners and farmers of Palestine. Very few people owned significant portions of land and those who did tended to hoard their resources to the neglect of the multitude of poor who worked the land.

 

Wealth fell into three areas: food (or crops), clothing, and precious metals and stones. The rotting riches, moth-eaten garments, and rusted gold and silver point to this ancient trio of wealth. As the Palestinian farmers grabbed all they could, James warns, "It is in the last days that you have stored up your treasure!" The word "treasure" is the root of our English word, thesaurus. A thesaurus is a treasury of every imaginable word, ready for our using. These farmers stuffed all they could find into their coffers so that they might have room for getting even more. They held on to their grain until it rotted and was useless for anyone. They crammed their closets with the finest of garments only to be ruined by moths. They hid gold and silver until these non-rusting metals began to rust. They lived with the theme:

 

Get all you can,

Can all you get,

Poison the lid,

And sit on the rest!

 

Hoarding implies that a person is keeping for himself more than he needs for his sustenance. There is a difference between wise saving for the future and the greedy spirit of seeing how much one can amass for personal indulgence. It is a love of money of which the Scripture warns, that leads to a smug dependence upon one's wealth. Hoarding deprives others so that one can satisfy his own cravings.

 

I do not know any figure to offer to determine what amount is saving and what is hoarding. But I do believe that hoarding is best detected by the attitude that depends upon one's resources rather than the Lord, plus it is never satisfied with what it has attained. As someone asked John Rockefeller on one occasion, "How much wealth is enough?" He replied, "Just a little more." That is the spirit of hoarding.

 

2. Fraudulence

 

How did the wealthy farmers amass so much in an impoverished land? They took advantage of their workers, cheating them of wages, delaying compensation, and failing to provide a reasonable income. "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." In the ancient world, laborers would be paid at the end of each day. They had no reserves upon which they could rely. Each day's work was enough for meager food supplies for the laborer and his family. If the landowner failed to pay at the day's end, the worker and his family would go hungry for the next day. Meanwhile, the landowners excused their neglect by shrewd verbal tactics. In spite of their clever devices, the Lord was aware of their crimes against the poor who labored in the fields. They had defrauded the laborers to increase their own wealth.

 

This same spirit of fraudulence is found in those who neglect to pay their employees a fair wage, perhaps making all sorts of excuses about high taxes, overhead, and a dozen other things. Meanwhile, the employee works hard to support the lavish ways of his employer. It is also found in those who intentionally provide a poor product or scant services though promising to deliver more. Such action defrauds the buyer of what he paid to obtain.

 

3. Indulgence

 

The typical scene of the wealthy in James' day was one of lavish indulgence. "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 words used paint a picture of a life of ease. That is the meaning of "luxuriously," a "soft life" that is not necessarily evil, but it is devoid of any sense of sacrifice or labor. The indulgence goes further into the pursuit of "wanton pleasure," a desire to feed the senses and cravings of the carnal nature. While the wealthy landowners lived in walled palaces with abundant servants and more than abundant provisions, their laborers barely scraped out an existence. James warns that "a day of slaughter" is heading their way, while they, like unsuspecting cattle, fattened themselves for the butcher's knife. One can almost imagine a greedy steer filling his belly on the rich foods provided by the owner without realizing that the quicker he fattens himself, the sooner he is slaughtered.

 

Perhaps the key to grasping how indulgence is applied to us is the phrase, "on the earth." Indulgence is the over-concern with the temporal to the neglect of the eternal. It finds its greatest joy in satisfying personal cravings rather than in giving oneself for service to others or God's Kingdom. Thomas Manton points out that indulgence is natural to us since it was characteristic of our two common parents, Adam and Noah. Adam fell by his indulgent appetite and Noah by his indulgence in drink. For this reason "we had need be careful" [James, 412].

 

4. Betrayal

 

We need only look to the scene of Judas Iscariot betraying our Lord for 30 pieces of silver to understand the power of wealth in bending men's hearts to betrayal. "You have condemned and put to death the righteous man; he does not resist you." Some commentators suggest that this verse even points to Judas' betrayal of Christ. Whether that is true or not, the implication is the same. The innocent man finds himself being abused because of the unconquered lust for wealth. As among the ancient laborers, their rights were cheated away by the legal maneuvering of the landowners, who betrayed the very ones who enabled them to obtain wealth.

 

There was an interesting note in our newspaper this week of a man who left a significant amount of money to the county. In the text of the story it told of the man and his sister having a bitter feud over their father's estate, which this man eventually landed. Do you suppose there was some measure of betrayal that took place?

 

Wealth can do wicked things in a person's life if unchecked by the ruling Lordship of Jesus Christ. We will do well to evaluate our own position and ask the Lord to expose any sense of hoarding, fraudulence, indulgence, or betrayal with the resources he has entrusted to us.

 

II. James' merciful warnings

 

The warnings of our text call the wealthy into accountability for the unique responsibility they have before God. Though wealth is never a sign of spiritual blessing, it is always an indication of responsibility before God. "From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more" (Luke 12:48). This statement of our Lord offers a pointed warning amplified by James.

 

1. An anticipation of miseries

 

The striking, "Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries which are coming upon you," demonstrates James' prophetic anticipation of the end of those abusing their wealth. He speaks with a certainty, "miseries which are coming upon you." He anticipates bitter wailing on the part of the wealthy who luxuriated themselves through the years only to meet with ultimate grief beyond measure. Thus he commands them, "weep and howl," or literally, weep howling ones. It pictures a perpetual grief over the miseries they face.

 

What are the "miseries" of which James speaks? In true prophetic mode there may have been both an imminent and an ultimate misery. This epistle was written about ten years before the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD under the hand of the Roman General Titus. It is said that a million people died in the siege that lasted for two years. The first targets of the violence of the soldiers and their plunder were the rich. So James could have been pointing to an "earthly" misery soon to happen.

 

But it is clear that James had more in mind. He was not so concerned with the temporal happenings as with those eternal. The certainty of divine judgment loomed before the rich. They satiated themselves upon all the fine things of life while denying the needy the help they cried for. Now they faced the Creator as Judge. Their wealth could not buy their way out of the intensity of divine punishment for the abuse of riches.

 

John Blanchard tells the story of a godless American farm who wrote to his local newspaper explaining, "I have been conducting an experiment in one of my fields. I have ploughed (sic) it on Sundays, sowed the seed on Sundays, watered and weeded it on Sundays, and gathered the harvest on Sundays-and I want to tell you that this October I have the finest crop of Indian corn in the whole neighbourhood (sic)." The local editor replied by adding a footnote, "God does not settle all his accounts in October!" [Truth for Life, 334]. We might think that we have gotten away with an injustice or greed or hoarding or betraying the trust of a friend because nothing has happened in the present. But the future as well as the present belongs to the Lord. He promises the "miseries" of judgment.

 

2. An eventual loss

 

The rich trust in their wealth. That was the problem in James' day and so in ours. One suicide followed another when the stock market fell during the Great Depression. Men who had put their trust in the temporal security of wealth could not bear to face life without it. The lack of satisfaction in wealth can be readily seen in the clamoring lifestyles of the wealthy, as they seek one more thrill or one more treasure or one more party. James explains that eventually all that the wealthy adores will come to naught. Why should we envy the ungodly who are wealthy since we can see their end (Ps. 73)?

 

"Your riches have rotted and your garments have become moth-eaten. Your gold and your silver have rusted." The trio of ancient wealth, food (grain), garments, and precious metals cannot go on into eternity. James uses the perfect tense to describe the condition of the wealthy person's riches. True wealth is found only in those things that we carry on into eternity. Jesus told us to put up for ourselves treasures in heaven where the moth cannot eat and the rust cannot corrode. But the trouble is that few people believe they will ever be without their beloved wealth.

 

The brevity of life addressed in 4:13-17 sets the right stage for the wealthy to realize that anything their eyes can see and hands touch in terms of the inanimate things of life will be no more. Yet we spend so much time and energy trying to amass wealth. Families are sacrificed on the altars of making and hoarding more. The spiritual life is neglected and often ignored in the pursuit of that which will burn away by the judgment fires of a righteous Lord. Opportunities of doing good deeds for others are lost in the mad dash to have more toys than one's neighbor. Let us heed the warning in our own lives.

 

3. A shocking reality

 

The very things that have become treasured in this life and the source of seemingly endless pleasures become the enemy of our souls. "It is in the last days that you have stored up your treasure!" 'Go ahead. Amass your treasures. Add to your goods. Pursue your delights. But know that these things will haunt you before the judgment of God. You will gladly give up all of these things to be found in God's pleasure before his wrath'.

 

During our recent study on atheism and agnosticism a list of names were read that noted some of the well-known atheists. Among them were many of the wealthy and famous from both business and entertainment worlds. Some of the richest people on the globe identified themselves as atheists. But their denial of God will not exempt them from judgment. They store up treasures only to be used as a witness against them in the day of the Lord.

 

4. A certain hearing

 

There is One who does hear the injustices done in the pursuit of wealth: "the Lord of Sabaoth." When Martin Luther wrote his great hymn, "A Mighty Fortress is our God," he used the name the Lord of Sabaoth to describe the might of the Lord in conquering the battle he faced before the enemy of our souls. The title comes from an Old Testament usage that implies the Lord is almighty, always conquering. Here James reminds the wealthy that they may achieve their pleasures in this life but they will ultimately face "the Lord of Sabaoth," the Almighty One in a conflict they will surely lose.

 

It is in response to the cries of those defrauded, misused, and betrayed that "the Lord of Sabaoth" will bring vengeance. "Their rust will be a witness against you and will consume your flesh like fire.... 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." The terms "witness against you...cries out against you...the outcry...reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth," reveals the fact that God does hear the injustices of men and will indeed avenge their loss.

 

The unused possessions that rot and rust become exhibit "A" to demonstrate the idolatry of wealth that damns an unrepentant rich man. Exhibit "B" are the ill-gotten gains that the laborers testify of, those who were cheated of their due, making a case against the rich. Exhibit "C" are the cries of the harvesters, those who bring in the wealth for the wealthy but are defrauded by them, that have reached the ears of the Judge who will avenge their losses. God will judge. Let there be no question. So what are you doing with the things the Lord has entrusted to you?

 

III. Believers' necessary correctives

 

There are some lessons that we can draw from this text that will help us to approach wealth and material possessions with a different posture. That seemed to be the major intention James had in mind. He wanted the body of Christ to learn the dangerous snares found in riches and to avoid them.

 

We must be reminded again that James is not condemning wealth but its misuse. Albert Barnes has wisely written, "There is no sin in merely being rich; where sin exists among the rich, it arises from the manner in which wealth is acquired, the spirit which it tends to engender in the heart, and the way in which it is used" [quoted by Motyer, The Message of James, 169]. The same sins, with a different twist are found in the poor as well.

 

1. Know the temporal and transitory nature of wealth

 

James helps us to see that all of the earthly treasures we cling to eventually rot or rust. Wealth is to be held carefully. The Proverbs continually exhort us to work hard, to save, and to store up for the day of trouble. But it never gives us permission to hoard, to be self-indulgent, and to make wealth an end in itself. Its purpose is for being able to provide for one's needs and to have something to give to others (Eph. 4:28).

 

I believe we would all do well to stop and assess our own attitude toward material possessions, bank accounts, stocks, and investments. While we do have a responsibility to provide for our families and to be adequately prepared for future needs, we must not live for these things nor hang our trust in them. If the attention of our lives centers on the temporal and transitory then we are surely neglecting what matters most.

 

2. Beware the idolatrous and self-centered snare in wealth

 

Paul warns that greed equates to idolatry. While none of us would dare bow to a stone image, we are idolatrous when our lives bow to wealth (Eph. 5:6). This same Apostle also warns, "For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs" (I Tim. 6:10). James concurs as he explains the indulgent lure of wealth that can eventually lead to abuse of others and judgment before God.

 

How do you recognize the idolatry of material possessions creeping into your life? Give it the generosity test. Do you enjoy giving to others? Do you worry that you might not be able to secure some new pleasure-item that your heart is set upon? Do you find yourself more enchanted by the worldly-minded wealthy than by the people of God?

 

3. Understand the right management and usefulness of wealth

 

William Bates, a Puritan preacher, has written timeless advice on the use of wealth:

When riches and power are employed for the glory of God and the good of others, they are a happy advantage to those that possess them. All benefits are virtual obligations; and the greater our receipts are, the greater our accounts will be. God has a sovereign right in all things we have, and they are not to be employed merely for our pleasure and profit, but according to his will, and for his honour [The Complete Works of William Bates, vol. II, 282].

There is a difference between prudent saving for the future, which the Bible admonishes us to do, and a greedy, self-centered hoarding for the present. One looks at wealth as a means to sustain the believer in service to God. The other looks at wealth as everything, as security in life. Finding joy in giving to others, investing our resources in the work of God's kingdom, and maintaining moderation in what we possess help us to use our wealth wisely. When our security abides in our wealth then it has ceased to be a tool and has become a lord over our lives.

 

Conclusion

 

The dangers of wealth will keep lurking at the conclusion of this sermon. But the truth about misuse of wealth explained in the Word of God can provide the right antidote to the poison of hoarding, fraudulence, indulgence, and betrayal. Will you look seriously at how you view your own wealth? Will you face the challenge of seeing yourself as managers of God's provisions in your life?

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