James No.14 Instruction on Prayer

Chapter 5 and verse 12. But above all things, my brothers, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath, but let your yea be yea, and your nay, nay, lest ye fall into condemnation. Is any among you afflicted? Let him pray.

Is any merry? Let him sing psalms. Is any sick among you? 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 shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up, and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.

Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months.

And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth a fruit. Brothers, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him, let him know that he which converted the sinner from the error of his way, shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins. You remember last week as we were making our way through this very practical, very helpful epistle of James, that I directed you to some words which the author of this letter offers as an encouragement to those who are going through great difficulty.

In the first six verses, he has been talking to others who are not Christian. They're businessmen, they're insensitive, they're about to receive the judgment of God, because of the careless way in which they have been living. But from the seventh verse, and down to the twelfth, James has in mind Christian people who are going through great difficulty.

And it was indeed a very trying time for those early Christians. They had the combination of the hostile forces of the Roman Empire, and the persecution of the Jewish authorities to contend with. Therefore they were under great difficulties indeed.

And when you're under pressure, when faith is difficult to cling on to, you need encouragement. And this is precisely what Pastor James is endeavoring to do, as with his letter, using it as a platform, as a pulpit. He ministers to brothers and sisters throughout the Roman Empire, Jewish Christians who are under great difficulty, and he stimulates them to have faith.

But what's the measure of the stimulus? Well, I explained it to you. It was the thought of the soon return of Jesus Christ, verse 7. It was the idea of prophets and holy men in days gone by, verse 10, who equally had gone through great difficulty, and yet had remained true to the Lord God and to His Word. And then the very character of God, the 11th verse, refers to this.

The Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy. That should help to pin someone who's in a state of utter panic. The concern of James is to encourage patience, and he does so by giving the picture of the coming Savior, and the coping saints, and the caring Sovereign.

So that's what he's been about in those earlier verses, from the 7th down to as far as the 12th. But now I want to take you a little further in our studies this morning, and we come to what he has to say from the 13th verse and down to the 15th, though we'll spin over to the 18th in a little while. Now when you have a look at these particular verses, these ones that I've just mentioned, from the 13th onward, when you allow your eyes to scan them, there is one particular thing that stands out in every verse, and it is the subject of prayer.

Look at verse 13. Is any of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray. And then the 15th verse.

We're told the prayer of faith shall save the sick. The 16th verse, reference to prayer. The 17th verse, again, Elijah, a man who prayed.

And in the 18th verse, we're told once again that he prayed. So here, permeating, flowing through the whole of these verses, is this subject of prayer. Now, why is it that James, in traditional Hebrew fashion as a teacher, picks up a new topic, a new pearl, and threads it on the string of his teaching? What's the connection between what has gone before and these particular verses with their injunction to prayer? Well, you will know from our past study that one of the things James is very concerned about is that Christian people should exercise their tongue correctly.

Indeed, he spends a whole chapter in telling us of the dangers of the misuse of the tongue. The third chapter is given over to that. But it also becomes very plain.

When you look at the previous passage of Scripture in this fifth chapter, that those who are under pressure often react badly. Bruce testified to this before he became a Christian. Very, very difficult, he said, to hold his self-control.

And many of us who are Christians would have to testify that there's a hangover, even as Christian people. And we find that when we're under pressure, we snap. We continue to grumble.

We hold a grudge, which is exactly what James is warning against in the ninth verse. And also in the twelfth verse, when he talks about careless oath takings. When you're in difficulty, when you're going through problems as a Christian, the possibility is that you say things against God.

You say things against your brothers and sisters, and you wish that you'd never spoken. You remember the comment I gave you last week from the psalmist. I said, in my haste, all men are liars.

I, and that was the problem. He said it in his haste. He said it under pressure.

He used words wrongly. Now, and this is the point, if you follow my argument. The reason why James is giving us this teaching on prayer is simply that the best use a Christian can put his vocal organ to, is that of prayer.

We were made to have a relationship with the Lord. We were made to pray to God. We were made to praise the Lord.

And there are four different types of people here, from the 13th verse to the 18th, who engage in prayer. There's that unfortunate man who's described in the AV of verse 13 as being afflicted. Or as the NIV puts it, there's the man who's in trouble.

In the 14th verse, there's the person who's sick, and he calls the elders to pray. In the 15th verse, or rather going back to the 13th verse, there's a person in a different circumstance. There's someone who's not in trouble.

They're happy. They're blessed. They're full of merriment, again to use the old-fashioned word.

And James says they are to pray. And then he gives us a classic example of Elijah, the prophet of old. He was a man who engaged a great deal in prayer.

So within this passage, you have three or four different examples of people praying in a variety of circumstances. And just to ensure that he's got your attention, James uses interrogatives. He uses questions to enlist your interest.

Is any among you in trouble? Let him pray. Is anybody happy? Let him sing songs. Is anyone of you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and so forth.

Well, let me show you how we'll look into these few verses of Scripture. I want, first of all, to draw your attention to the 13th verse, where James teaches about prayer. And he does so by giving two opposite examples of human experience.

So here is prayer in different extremes. And then the 14th verse. We'll make that our second section for this morning.

Here is prayer in a specific circumstance. The person who is sick. Well, let's go to the first idea.

Here is James teaching us about prayer when our situations may be very, very opposite. He talks about a man who's suffering, and he talks about a man who is happy. On one hand, there is trouble.

On one hand, there is affliction. Great, great problems this man has. Is any man afflicted, says James? Well, I reckon that the whole of the Jewish Christian community could have stood to their feet throughout the Roman Empire and said, yes, James, we're in trouble.

We've got great difficulties living as Christians. But it's not just a question of dealing with them. There are Christian people who are at the opposite end of the scale of circumstances.

And so James says, is any of you happy? Well then, let's take these two extremes, says James, and let's see how as Christian people we are to react, whether we're in difficulty or whether we're extremely happy, whether we're blessed or whether we are being buffeted. And you will discover in this 13th verse, the fact that Christianity is the religion for the whole of life. It doesn't matter what your situation is, there is a way to react, because you're a Christian.

All right, let's take the first part. Is any among you in trouble? Is any among you afflicted? All right, there are some of you afflicted, says James, and what do you do? Well, what do you do when you're in trouble? What do you do when you're in trouble at school? Complain about the school teacher. You haven't passed your examinations, what do you do? Well, it was the standard of the teacher, he should give me better lessons.

Nothing to do with me, I complain. Here I am as a Christian, and there are difficulties in my life. Is any of you afflicted? What do you do? You tend to grumble, you tend to complain, you tend to say to God things that you wish that you had never said.

And so James puts down this maxim, when you're in trouble, the best thing for you to do is to pray. The Psalmist said, when my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock that is higher than I. The hymn that we've just been singing together about the friendship that we have in Jesus, it encourages us when we're in difficulty to pray. Are you weak and heavy laden? Take it to the Lord in prayer.

Do your friends reject, forsake you? Take it to the Lord in prayer. In his arms he will embrace you. You will find a solace there.

When you're in difficulty, says James, pray. Is anyone happy? Engage in intercession. Ah, but there's more to it, there's the opposite extreme.

Here is a person who's very happy. Well, is there any need to attend to this spiritual discipline of engaging in intercession before the Lord? Indeed there is, says James. Is any merry? Let him sing psalms.

Why do I need to be in touch with God, no matter what my situation is, whether I am sad or whether I am happy? Because each circumstance brings its own temptation. The sad man complains. The one who's happy because he's going through an easy experience in life, he sits back and relaxes.

The Old Testament says in the words of the AV, when Jeshurum waxed fat, then he kicked. What does that mean? When your circumstances are easy, you tend to lose grip of God. You forget the fact, as James indicates, that every good and every perfect gift comes from the Father above.

So when I'm blessed, I should pray. When I'm in difficulty, I should pray. It doesn't matter what the extremes of circumstance are.

Whatever I'm going through, however opposing my circumstance may be to someone else's, I should be engaged in contact with my Heavenly Father. I should sing psalms if I'm happy. How great to sing psalms to the Lord.

The word there is psalms. It doesn't necessarily mean it's a wider word, the book of psalms itself, but it does mean singing spiritual songs to the Lord. Thank you.

It does mean bringing to the Lord the expressions of worship that are in my heart, perhaps singing a verse of scripture to the Lord, perhaps using one of these hymns from Hymns of Faith and singing it to the Lord, and doing so with great enthusiasm, because I have something to bless God for. Is anyone among you happy? Let him sing, says Charles Wesley. Sing lustily and with a good courage.

Beware of singing as if you were half asleep or half dead, but lift up your voice with strength. Do not be ashamed of being heard. One of the most moving experiences for me is to listen to this congregation really sing.

They're singing and singing. Sometimes you sing and the Spirit's not enlivening your heart. You just go through the motions.

Then suddenly, because of God's grace, our spirits become enlivened and we realize the indebtedness that we have to the Lord for all that he's done for us. And so we sing how sweet the name of Jesus sounds in a believer's ears. And some of us who are not so prejudiced will also take up some modern hymn and modern song.

And we will sing because it's scripture and because it's right so to do. Jesus name above all names, blessed Redeemer, beautiful Lord, Emmanuel, God with us, and so forth. We have a right to be singing people because God has done so much for us.

A young Ecuadorian who gave her life to the Lord Jesus Christ from the tribe of the Alcor Indians. When she returned to her tribe and she wanted to tell in the Alcaton of what God had done for her. And where she used to go on a Sunday, she referred to the church as God's singing house.

God's singing house. The place where people came not to pull their miseries, but rather to enthuse one another because of what God in his grace had done. Is any among you afflicted? Let him pray.

Let him bring that to the Lord. Is any among you happy? Let him sing songs and let's do it joyfully and enthusiastically. Well basic to this twin response in scripture is the thought that whatever our circumstances are, whether I'm in despondency, whether I'm in elation, I speak to my God because he can meet my need.

If I go through problem, it is his will. So I take it to him and I ask for grace to be able to survive in the hour of temptation. If I'm blessed, it is his will because every good thing comes from him.

It doesn't matter what my circumstances are, I can come to the Lord because he's the superintendent. He's the chairman of my life. That is what James is here teaching.

We are to pray in different extremes and when we praise the Lord, we are to do it with full heart, singing songs unto the Lord and making melody before his throat. But let me hasten up. If that is how we are to cope with extremes, with opposing situations, how are we to conduct ourselves in a specific circumstance and that being the one so common to many people of ill health.

Listen again to James. Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord and the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well and the Lord will raise him up. Now this is a very fascinating verse of scripture.

It's made even more fascinating because there are so many ways of interpreting it that have been attempted. Let me suggest one or two which will help to open the whole thing out because there can be no person here who can understand me, who has not been faced with the problem of ill health personally or within their family circle and many of us are aware of what James says here and are hard put to understand what he is teaching. Well as I say let's examine one or two ways in which this has been understood by people in the Christian Church.

Let me first of all sketch out what James is saying although it's easy to grasp but just for the benefit of those who are not so familiar with scripture as the majority here are. The picture is of a man who is sick or of a lady who's sick. A Christian person and as a result of their sickness they feel a need for prayer and so they send a message to the local church.

Will the elders of the church come along and will they pray for me? And so they come and they take oil and they anoint the individual and they ask that God in his grace shall heal. They endeavor to offer the prayer of faith and we're told the Lord shall raise him up and if he have committed sins they shall be forgiven him. Well then what are these several interpretations? Well there is what we shall call the historical interpretation.

What does this have to say? Well simply put it associates this passage of scripture with what Paul refers to in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 and 14 in other words the charismatic gifts and the idea goes from a conclusion perhaps somewhat hastily drawn from a statement Paul makes in 1 Corinthians chapter 13 that all these things are now through. The completion of the canon of scripture has meant the cessation of the supernatural and therefore when the Apostles died out or the men of the first two and three centuries died out when the whole of the New Testament was intact and attached to the old and we had a full complement of scripture then we would no longer have need for any intervention of God in the area of the miraculous. And according to that interpretation this is a tradition of a day gone by and it is not to be invoked or thought as being something to be practiced today it's a bygone ministry.

And then there is another which we shall call the Catholic interpretation. Now the majority of you although perhaps not skilled in the theological system of the Catholic Church will be aware of this practice although you will have come across it in a different context by a different name. We all know the tragedy of Northern Ireland and these unfortunate wretched men who starved themselves to death in the Mace prison in Belfast.

I'm not commenting on their circumstances particularly I'm just using it as an illustration. What happens just before they die? As far as one can detect the moments or the days leading up to death well a Catholic priest will come along and he will offer what are known as the last rites. Another way of expressing this is extreme unction and he will have with him a little cruise of oil and he will apply that oil perhaps to the lips and make a cross or to the ear or perhaps both and to the eyes and maybe to another organ of the human body and he will give absolution to the man who is about to die and in effect he is saying any sins committed from the mouth any sins committed from the eyes any sins committed from the ears and so forth I absolve in the name of and he will refer to the Trinity.

Well that is the way that the Catholic Church understood understand this it's the it's the ministry of the of the last rites you have to go back to a man called Peter Lombard who lived in 1100 to 1160 AD to discover the origin of it it's one of the sacraments of the Catholic Church the last rites which prepares a man for death and ultimately to stand before his Lord. This we are told is what James is referring to and as I say the illustration are the last rites offered to these unfortunate wretched men in Belfast in the in the maze the historical approach the Catholic approach then there is one other idea which you must consider and it is what we'll call the medical interpretation and this goes to say something like this that oil had curative and medical purposes in days gone by and indeed in certain circumstances does have today and the Bible is always very complimentary towards those who minister to the sick at the natural level of being physicians and doctors and so you've got that lovely parable of the Good Samaritan and you remember how he stops on the Jericho Road and he ministers to the man who's been exploited he pours oil into his wounds for healing he pours wine in as an antiseptic and he takes a man ultimately to the inn midway between Jerusalem and Jericho and then you recall how the Apostle Paul writing to the young Timothy says in the letter that bears the name of the young man take a little wine for your stomach's sake you're often fermented your digestive system it gives you so many problems have a little bit of wine it'll help to to settle you and because of this very friendly this very understanding approach of Scripture towards the ministry of medical people it is thought that here you have a sort of transference in James from the ministry of healing from the so-called elders or clergy if you please through to the medical men eventually the ecclesiastics they move away and the doctors come into harness and this is basically what this particular passage is teaching well I hope in just looking at that you've got something at any rate in perspective because that will help us to clear the way for our own considerations and possibly a conclusion let me just go back those particular options for a moment and make one or two personal comments that's what the historical approach well you remember we're told that this no longer applies because the apostolic era is out and the charismata the spiritual gifts of seats well be that as it may if you draw that conclusion I personally find it a very difficult one to sustain from Scripture but even if you were to say that from 1 Corinthians chapters 12 and 14 on the basis of that slender comment of Paul in 1 Corinthians 13 you're not out of your difficulty why not well you see it doesn't say anything here about Apostles at all it speaks about elders now basically the Apostles were the foundation stone of the church churches built on the name of Jesus Christ the foundation stone of the prophets and the Apostles all right these men were unique but there's nothing said about these men here nothing at all is any sick among you let him call for the elders of the church and as far as I understand it the elder it is an office that continues if you can demonstrate it otherwise then the five or six men will be without a job at the end of the morning service here the office of an elder a continuous what's about them the Catholic approach and that this is the last right what's my problem here well I have great deals of problems a great deal of problem as I've often confessed I trust lovingly from this pulpit with the Catholic approach to so many things but in the name of sanity if this applies to the last right then why doesn't James say that the person who is going to be prayed for will die because it seems to me if I've got it right from the AV and the NIV but the person recovers far from preparing them for death you are preparing them for life and whatever the wise men of the Council of Trent may say in as much as they argue that James is only putting down what Jesus taught himself during his earthly ministry there is no shred of evidence at all to support the contention that this and the good the Catholic myth of the last right I'd say that with compassion but I have to say it objectively I have to say it academically there is no way in which we could give support to this particular fanciful notion well then what about the third the idea that this is a sort of transitional stage here is the church handing over to the doctor well in some measure I have great sympathy with this idea because I think to some extent there is an element of value in it the Christian Church particularly in Europe was the origin from which the medical profession sprang I could demonstrate this to you historically and scripture always speaks with great approval of men and particularly Christian doctors who operate at a sort of if you like horizontal level with their patients endeavoring to induce the body to recover by the stimulant of drugs and herbs and surgical treatment and what have you the Apostle Paul the Apostle Paul was very very careful when he makes reference to Luke to refer to him as the beloved physician in Colossians which indicates at the lowest level that he approved of his ministry and perhaps by implication indicates that he had many a recourse to the services of the beloved Luke himself so in one sense I say that I feel that there is a great deal of value at least there is some value in what is being said God blesses the doctor who works on behalf of his patients cooperating with the powers that God placed in nature in the body for recovery so that the person may be healed but really having said that and having indicated how I believe that scripture is very much on the side so to speak if one can use this terminology of the doctors it seems to me that that in itself is not a satisfactory explanation or application of these particular verses I'll just be about five minutes more I know many of you can't grasp the English language or up there but I'd be grateful if you could just hold on for a few minutes longer let me take you back over what is being indicated here the first thing is that oil is going to be used in the laying on or rather in the laying on of hands of the elders because the person is sick oil is going to be used actually what I meant to emphasize I was thrown off the subject just for a moment what I meant to emphasize was this in this particular injunction the person first of all calls for the ministry of the elders and it is the sick person himself or herself who asks for the elders to come along and to minister to them and then we are informed that there is a dimension of healing besides the body if any have committed sins they shall be forgiven him so it's not just the healing of the body which we have in mind here it is also the healing of the soul now with those little points in mind let me remind you that oil stands for the presence of the Holy Spirit and when a person is anointed with oil as seems to be directed as the directions of James here seem to indicate then we are reminding them if they are Christian people that they have been anointed with the oil of the Spirit Jesus Christ was the anointed one he was empowered by the Holy Spirit and so when ministry is undertaken and oil is applied the oil symbolizes the Spirit and the name of Jesus is invoked let them pray over him who is sick so the means of recovery is not through the oil which is sacramental of the Spirit it is not through the hands of the people who impress them upon the head of the candidate it is through the prayer the prayer of faith which is offered in the name of the Lord Jesus well you say you're arguing that this sort of thing should happen today you're quite right I am arguing this I'm not only arguing it I in my own ministry and that is my brothers on the Eldritch here in the tabernacle have often participated in it you say well that's something we never knew well that may be the case but nonetheless it is true you see there are certain ministries within the church which don't necessarily need to be placarded the church has suffered for too long by charlatans who've got on the healing stage so to speak and have done dishonor to the name of God as a result there is always of course the facility of the laying on of hands for those who are sick you say does that always mean they recover well here we're in difficulty because the honest answer to the question is no not always sometimes yes I could cite you one or two rather extraordinary healings that I have known through this particular ministry but on the other hand honesty demands that I confess I have to say that on many many occasions there has not been any visible physical improvement but having said that I must also point out in absolute honesty and fidelity to scripture and this particular practice I have never known anyone have hands laid on them who has called for the ministry of myself and the elders who have not been spiritually fortified as a result you say that's not sufficient well that may not be sufficient maybe we have been looking for more than this we've been looking for both spiritual and also physical help but there is bound up in this passage the idea of spiritual help being granted as well as physical by the laying on of hands and if there are certain things that we don't understand when we pray to the Lord then we have to admit that there are areas where we are ourselves in difficulty we have not understood the whole counsel of God I still have the L plates on as a theologian indeed I wouldn't even take that name as descriptive of myself I am still learning about the truth of this book but when it tells me to do a certain thing I will do it and when someone believes and it is their initiative that the elders should pray and lay hands on them and then we will agree to this of course and we shall look to the Lord for ourselves or for the candidate to be able to pray the prayer of faith so that both physically and spiritually they are recovered but however God reacts to what we say in his will for everything is conditional on his will we will accept the result as being in accord with what he requires for the people who have been ministered to thereby so we come to this scripture and we take it at its face value God heals horizontally through the medical profession praise God for that there are times when he heals dynamically through the laying on of hands through spiritual men who pray with those who are sick we haven't got all the answers as I said to this particular problem we recognize that somewhere in it is built in the difficulty of knowing God's will in every circumstance and we have the difficulty of establishing what really is the prayer of faith but God understands our shortcomings God understands my limitation as a student of his word as a pastor to people and we implement what is a plain statement in scripture we don't change it and manipulate it simply because we don't always achieve the results that we would like to follow this particular ministry we take God's word as it stands and we incorporate into all of our activity the doctrine of the sovereignty of God he allows me sometimes to be happy but other times to be unhappy sometimes I may be relatively rich other times I may be relatively poor it doesn't matter what my circumstances are he allows it and it's his will similarly with this whole business of sickness I pray for the recovery of every sick person unless I have a direct revelation from the Lord which I've never had in my life yet so the person should remain sick may well be that that is God's will for certain people obviously that must be the case but there are times thank God in the ministry of laying on of hands when people have recovered and praise the Lord I have never known and I go through hours of disquiet sometimes when I asked to involve myself in this ministry because I'm concerned of the lack of faith the blow that it may be to the candidate if they don't physically recover in the whole of 20 odd years or just less than that of ministry in the Christian Church I've never known anyone who has not been improved in spirit and in faith through the implementation of this scripture I've not answered all your questions this morning I'm sure I've got questions one day I want to put at the feet of Jesus to him and I'll get the answers then because he knows everything I want to know why my father was so much in pain throughout the later years of his life I've got no answer to that he prayed desperately for his recovery but he didn't recover many of you could say the same about loved ones that you know but whether we get the answer that we ourselves would want or not we accept that he's sovereign he never makes a mistake in affliction he's my God in a happy condition he's still my God we praise him still through good or ill whoever lives and where we don't understand his word completely we acknowledge we're still students waiting for that day when we have a full understanding of all of God's purposes thank you loving-kindness changes not and father that's the greatest stimulus to our faith and even when evidence seems to suggest itself to the country that we will die believing your loving kindness will never change may that fortify us even in the complex situations of life be with all who've listened to this message and may there have been stimulus and comfort in it that shall have been of help for Jesus sake amen