James - James 5:13-18

James is telling us if we will keep our lives clean and if we will pray, God answers prayer. And I trust that you are discovering in your life not only the joy of answered prayer but the joy of prayer itself, being in fellowship with the God of the universe.

And now let's pray together. Thank You, Father, for Your precious will. Thank You that You do not treat us as numbers in a file; we are individuals. You know our names, our needs, You know our very natures, and You know even the number of the hairs on our head. You know all about us and You have planned a perfect plan for our lives, and for this we are grateful. You have given us Your word to guide us, and for this we give thanks. Now help us as we study, I pray in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.

When the artist was painting a portrait of Oliver Cromwell, the Puritan leader, Cromwell said, "Paint me warts and all." Well, James has done that with the local church, hasn't he? When you read the letter that James sent to these Christians, you see the warts. Here were people who were fighting with one another, there was rivalry for church offices, there was prejudice against the poor and toward the rich. And when you get to James 5:13-20, you find a number of different kinds of people. Such a variety of people in a local church. 

James 5:13, some were suffering and some were singing. Some were having difficulty and some were just rejoicing at the good things that had happened to them. And some were sick and he told them to call for the leaders of the church to pray and to confess their sins that God might be able to answer. What an encouragement this is for us to pray. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much, James 5:16. 

You find those who are suffering, James 5:13, "Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray." And you find those who are singing, "Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing. Sing psalms." And you find those who are sick, "Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Confess your trespasses to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. The effective fervent prayer of a righteous man avails 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 land for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit." 

And so we have those who are suffering and those who are singing and those who are sick. And we find those who are straying, James 5:19-20, "Brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins." Well, here we have the local church, warts and all, and we better look at these different believers and how God met their needs. 

James 5:13, "Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray." Now the word for suffering here means difficult circumstances, trials, going through hardship. Doesn't necessarily mean physical suffering such as sickness or accident; it can mean emotional or it can mean spiritual suffering, mental suffering. Here is a church member who is going through a rough time, going through hardship. Perhaps he was referring to the poor people that he described in James 5:7-11, people who had not been paid their wages. They'd worked hard and they'd earned their money, but they had not been paid; they had financial pressures against them. And James gives him the solution. He says, "Let him pray." Now prayer is mentioned seven times in this paragraph. Prayer is an important part of the Christian life. No one rises any higher than his praying. 

There is a tradition that James himself was a great man of prayer. It was said that he knelt to pray so much that his knees became like the knees of a camel. And therefore James was known for his prayer life. Now the affliction that this saint is going through amounts to difficult circumstances in life. He could blame other people, he could blame the Lord, he could indulge in self-pity—we often do that when things are going rough—but James says, "Don't do that. I want you to pray. Just take time to pray." In James 1:5, he said, "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God." Pray for wisdom. Pray for wisdom not to waste the experience that you're going through. James 4:6, "But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: 'God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.'" We should therefore humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God that He may lift us up. So if you're going through affliction, take time to pray. Pray for wisdom. Pray for grace. A righteous man's prayer is of great might in its working; that's one way to translate James 5:16. When we pray, God goes to work. And so in times of affliction we ought to pray. 

Then there are those who are not suffering, but they're singing. "Is anyone cheerful?" Now the word cheerful here doesn't mean careless, flippant, jesting—he's not describing a Christian clown. What he's saying is life is going well for you, the lines have fallen unto you in pleasant places, and you're not going through any special affliction. This doesn't mean that you're backslidden. There are some Christians who have the idea that when things are going well, there must be something wrong. No, there are times when God leads us beside the still waters; He rests us in the green pastures. When Israel was going through that wilderness, they weren't always going through tough times. Sometimes God brought them to places like Elim, where it was an oasis and there were trees and fresh water and God gave them a restful time. You see, God knows how to balance our lives, and God knows how to balance a church. Some people are suffering and some are singing. Some are carrying heavy burdens and some are rejoicing. Now all of us have something to sing about. In fact, you could reverse these admonitions and not be contrary to scripture. Is anyone among you suffering? Let him sing psalms. Is anyone cheerful? Let him pray. The two go together. You see, if we're going through a wonderful, happy time in our lives, we must be careful because we're liable to get off guard. Satan's liable to catch us off guard. When things are going well, we need to pray as well as sing. And when things are going tough, we need to sing as well as pray. 

Christians have something to sing about. He brought us up out of a pit, out of the miry clay; He has put a new song in our mouths, even praise unto our God. You know, singing is the expression of the inner person. We should sing intelligently; Paul tells us that in 1 Corinthians 14:15. We should sing led by the Holy Spirit, Ephesians 5:18-19, not carnal singing, fleshly singing. Our singing must be from the heart, Ephesians 5:19, and Colossians 3:16 tells us singing with grace in our hearts. We've got to have grace to sing. When you realize you're living by grace, oh, you've got something to sing about. By the way, the better you know your Bible, the more you'll be able to sing praises to the Lord. Colossians 3:16 tells us that when the word of Christ dwells in us richly, then we can minister with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. 

Now there are those who are sick, James 5:14-16. I suppose this touches a number of people. There are a lot of people who are sick. "Is anyone among you sick?" Now, he shouldn't complain because somebody over in the other house is singing. "Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church." Notice he doesn't call for a faith healer. He doesn't call for somebody with special charismatic gifts. He just simply asks the officers of the church to come. By the way, unless he calls them, they can't come. I have pastored three different churches; I've had church members get unhappy with me because I didn't visit them when they were sick. I didn't know they were sick. I had no idea. People have gone to the hospital and gone home, no one told us about it. People think that a pastor or a church visitor is somehow clairvoyant, we have a special gift of knowing exactly when you get ill. Well, we don't. You have to tell us. And so James said, "Let him call the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord." 

I think we have here a rather special case, although there are principles here that apply to everyone who knows the Lord Jesus Christ. I think we have somewhat of a special case here. To begin with, we have the elders of the church involved and the man or the person who is sick has apparently been involved in some kind of discipline. James 5:15, "And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven." It's an interesting statement. It really says, "if he has been committing sin," something habitual. Now I get the impression from these verses, James 5:13-16, that James is talking about somebody who is sick because of sin. God's disciplining this person. You find this, of course, in 1 Corinthians, where Paul said, "For this cause some of them are weak and sickly among you, and some sleep," 1 Corinthians 11:30. Now not all sickness comes from sin, let me hasten to make that statement. Not all sickness comes from sin, and not all sickness can be cured by prayer. In 2 Timothy 4:20, Paul said he left Trophimus behind because he was sick. Why didn't Paul heal him? Why didn't he call for the elders of the church to pray over him? Not all sickness comes from sin, and not all sickness can be healed by prayer. 

I think we have a special case here where the elders are called and there is a prayer meeting and the confession of sin and God heals. Now James 5:15 says, "the prayer of the faith will save the sick." The prayer of the faith. Not just any prayer, the prayer of the faith. What's he talking about? Well, someone among those elders is given by the Holy Spirit a special burden for prayer. You see, people call me and say, "Oh, Brother Wiersbe, pray for my loved one that he might get well." I don't know if God wants that loved one to get well. I have prayed many times in sickrooms, hospital rooms, in surgical wards, and we don't always know what God wants to do. But here is a situation where God gives to one of the elders a special touch of faith, and he's able to pray in the will of God the way we read about in 1 John 5. If we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. 

Now anointing with oil was a normal medicinal practice in that day. When the Samaritan found that beaten up Jew on the side of the road, he poured oil and wine in his wounds. The anointing with oil has a special significance; oil is a picture of the Holy Spirit. When our Lord sent His disciples out to minister, Mark 6:13, they went out and they anointed with oil and God healed. I've had experience in my pastoral ministry of praying for people and the elders and I have anointed with oil. I remember one week we had two ladies who came to us after the morning service wanting special prayer and anointing. And so by faith we did it. One went into the hospital, had surgery, and died. The other, in a miraculous way, became quite well—not perfect, but quite well. We don't guarantee that all of our prayers are going to be answered. It's the prayer of faith that saves the sick, not the oil, not the gathering of the saints—the prayer of faith. And of course, involved here is the fact that they confess their sins to one another and pray for one another. It's a matter of real, effectual prayer. If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. 

Now there are some basic principles we can learn here. Sin does bring suffering. I don't have to preach that; we know it. Again, I'll say it: not all sickness comes from sin, not all handicaps come from sin, but sin does bring suffering. No question about that. And sin affects other people, and the longer we hold on to our sin, the more God has to deal with us. Hidden sin is like a wound that has not been cleansed and healed, and it continues to pour out poison. He's talking here about not only physical healing, but I think a spiritual healing. Confess your trespasses to one another, pray for one another, that you may be healed. Not only physically, but I think emotionally. 

He uses Elijah as his example here. He said Elijah was a person just like we are, in other words, a man of like nature. He had the same weaknesses and faults that we have. He prayed it would not rain; it didn't rain. He prayed that it would rain, and it did rain. You see, God accomplished national consequences because of one man's prayer. Up in James 5:13, we have an individual Christian praying for himself: "Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray." Then in James 5:14-16, we have a group of elders, spiritual leaders, praying for one of the members of the church. Now in James 5:17-18, we have a prophet praying for the whole nation. The sphere of our prayer influence must be enlarged. Don't live just in James 5:13, praying for yourself. And don't live in only James 5:14-16, praying for the sick members of your church. How about James 5:17-18, praying for our nation, praying that God will bring the showers of blessing that we need. The effective fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. Not just a prophet, not just an elder, anyone! 

What a privilege it is for us to have the opportunity for prayer. I think we take it for granted. I think we forget about it. We pray in emergencies, we pray in a crisis, we don't pray day after day. Pray without ceasing. Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms. Let's learn to weep with those who are weeping and let's rejoice with those who are rejoicing. Let's not get envious because someone else is having perhaps an easier time than we are having. If this paragraph teaches us anything, it teaches us the power of prayer and the importance of being a part of a praying fellowship. I hear Christians say, "Well, I don't need the church; I can read my Bible at home, I can read books, I don't have to go to church." Well, James is telling us here, when you're having a problem, my friend, on whom are you going to call? We need the fellowship of the local church. We need elders who will pray for us and who will give us spiritual guidance. We need to confess our sins one to another. He's not talking here about some kind of priestly confession. He's simply saying be honest with each other. You can't pray for each other if there's sin in your heart. If you've got some grudge in your heart against a brother, you take care of that. Confession must be within the sphere of the influence of the sin. Private sin, private confession; public sin, public confession. 

And James is telling us if we will keep our lives clean and if we will pray, God answers prayer. And I trust that you are discovering in your life not only the joy of answered prayer but the joy of prayer itself, being in fellowship with the God of the universe.