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Summary

Twice in today’s passage James says, “Come now” (4:13; 5:1). It is the voice of a pastor who stops us in the middle of a busy life. The first time, he speaks to people making plans. Today or tomorrow we will go to a town. We will stay a year. We will trade and make a profit (4:13). It sounds like an ordinary business plan. But James sees what is missing. “You do not know what tomorrow will bring” (4:14). Our life is a mist. It appears for a little time and then vanishes. So we ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that” (4:15). Boasting about tomorrow is evil (4:16). And knowing the right thing to do and not doing it is sin (4:17).

The second time, James speaks to the rich (5:1-6). His words sound like the Old Testament prophets. Weep and howl. Your riches have rotted. Your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have corroded (5:2-3). The very corrosion will be evidence against them. They laid up treasure “in the last days” (5:3). Then James shows how that treasure was gained. Laborers mowed their fields, and their wages were kept back by fraud. Now those wages cry out. The cries of the harvesters have reached “the ears of the Lord of hosts” (5:4). The rich lived in luxury. They fattened their hearts in a day of slaughter (5:5). They condemned and murdered the righteous person, and he did not resist (5:6).

Notice one small thing. From 4:13 to 5:6, James never once says “brothers.” He used the word in 4:11, and he will use it again in 5:7. Here he sounds like a prophet calling out to anyone who will hear. The planners and the rich have one thing in common. They live as if tomorrow belongs to them and no one is listening. James tells them, and us, that both are wrong. Tomorrow belongs to God. And God hears.

Meditation Points

1. If the Lord wills (4:13-17)

Read verse 13 slowly. Today or tomorrow. A town. A year. Trade. Profit. Every detail is in place except one. God is not in the sentence.

James is not against planning. A plan can be a good and faithful thing. What James sees is the heart behind the plan. Proverbs said it long ago. “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring” (Proverbs 27:1).

“Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.’” (4:15)

Why do we plan as if tomorrow were ours? Sometimes it is pride. Sometimes it is fear. Internal Family Systems (IFS) notices that some parts of us work very hard, ahead of time, to keep us safe and in control.1 They make lists. They run every scenario. They try to stay one step ahead of pain. I think this is a helpful observation. The busy planner inside us is often a frightened one.

But James offers that frightened heart something better than control. He offers a Lord. “If the Lord wills” is not a lucky phrase to tack onto our plans. Paul spoke this way too (1 Corinthians 4:19). It is the posture of a child who knows whose hand holds tomorrow. David prayed, “My times are in your hand” (Psalm 31:15). In Christ, we know what kind of hand that is. It is the hand of a Father who has already given us His Son.

Then James adds verse 17. “So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.” If life is a mist, the good we can do today should not wait for a tomorrow we may not have. Coaches know this gap well. One of the ICF core competencies is “Facilitates Client Growth.” ICF describes it this way: “Partners with the client to transform learning and insight into action.”2 Insight that never becomes action stays a nice thought.

As Christians, we take one more step. We do not cross from knowing to doing by willpower alone. Grace has already acted for us. So we can act today.

2. Treasure that rots (5:1-3)

“Weep and howl.” These are heavy words. Most of us do not think of ourselves as rich. So it is easy to read these verses as a word for someone else. Let’s not do that too quickly.

Look at what James lists. Riches. Garments. Gold and silver. Everything these people trusted is falling apart. Moths are eating the clothes. Corrosion is eating the gold. And James says that corrosion “will eat your flesh like fire” (v. 3). What we hoard does not stay outside of us. Slowly, it begins to eat at the heart.

“Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten.” (5:2)

Jesus said the same thing in the Sermon on the Mount. “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy” (Matthew 6:19). Then He gave the reason. “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21).

Notice the phrase “in the last days” (v. 3). These people stored up as if time would never run out. But James has just told us that life is a mist (4:14).

So the question is not only how much we have. The deeper question is where our heart rests. For some of us, the treasure is money. For others, it may be security, a good name, or a ministry that looks successful. Anything we hold more tightly than we hold God will begin to rot in our hands.

Here is the good news. “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9). The truly rich One became poor. He did it for us. In Him we already have a treasure that moth and rust cannot touch. People who know they are rich in Christ can finally open their hands.

3. The cry reaches the Lord of hosts (5:4-6)

You can almost hear verse 4. The wages that were kept back are “crying out.” The harvesters are crying too. And their cries have reached the ears of God.

“Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.” (5:4)

God cares about wages. His law said so plainly. “You shall give him his wages on the same day, before the sun sets (for he is poor and counts on it), lest he cry against you to the Lord, and you be guilty of sin” (Deuteronomy 24:15). A paycheck held back is not a small thing to God.

This word reaches us from two directions. Some of us hold something that others are counting on. It may be pay. It may be time, attention, or a promise we made. James asks us to give it, and to give it on time.

Others of us stand on the other side. Perhaps you were wronged, and no one seems to notice. A part of you may still be carrying that old injustice. Then hear this. Your cry has reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. He is the Lord of heaven’s armies. You are not invisible to Him.

Verse 6 ends quietly. “You have condemned and murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you.” I think James is speaking first of righteous poor people who were crushed by the powerful. But I cannot read this verse without thinking of Jesus. Stephen called Him “the Righteous One,” whom his hearers had “betrayed and murdered” (Acts 7:52). Peter wrote that “when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly” (1 Peter 2:23).

The Righteous One was condemned so that people like us could go free. That grace reaches the oppressed. It even reaches the oppressor who repents. “By his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24).

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