Lesson 35. The Reclamation Of Straying Christians (James 5:19-20) Series

Lesson Text: James 5:19-20 (NKJV)

19Brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back, 20let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save [l]a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.

INTRODUCTION

It's always an anxious moment, especially for families and friends, when someone is reported missing in the wilderness. Search and rescue teams spring into action. We wait expectantly for any word of locating the missing person. It's a moment of great joy if they find the person alive and well, but a time of great sorrow when they're too late.

If you are a Christian, then you're a member of God's search and rescue team. But even though every believer is on the team, I find that many never respond to the call to go out into the storm and look for the lost. Can you imagine being lost in the woods, but no one came looking for you? When you finally stagger out to civilization, you ask why no one came looking.

One member of the search and rescue team says, "It was frigid and stormy, and there was a good show on TV. So I just prayed for you to be okay." Another says, "I wanted to be sensitive to your feelings. I thought you might be embarrassed if we came looking." Another says, "I wasn't sure you were lost. It would be judgmental to imply that you were lost. Besides, it would be arrogant of me to say that I'm not lost. After all, we all have our paths on the journey." That's not the kind of search and rescue team that I would want if I were lost!I admit that what James tells us to do here is one of the most difficult things God asks us to do as Christians, namely,

Believers are responsible for helping restore straying sinners to the truth.

That task is often about as pleasant as trying to help a wounded dog—you're probably going to get bit no matter how gently you try to help. When you're successful, it's a moment of great joy, as when a search and rescue team announces, "We have found him, and he is alive and well." Yes! But even the hope of success doesn't make the task any easier. But since you're on God's search and rescue team, you need to learn how to do the job. Note three things:

1. Professing Christians stray from the truth both doctrinally and morally.

2. The search and rescue ministry is the responsibility of all believers.

3. The search and rescue ministry aims to restore the sinner to the truth, save his soul from death, and cover a multitude of sins.

COMMENTARY

19. Brethren, if anyone among you wanders[1] from the truth, and someone turns him back,

Brethren — As if James had said, I have now warned you of those things to which you are most accountable. And in all these respects, watch, not only over yourselves but everyone over his brother also. Labor, in specific, to recover those that are fallen out of faith. For if any of you do blunder and fall from the truth — From the right way in which he ought to walk, if he is seduced by any means from the doctrine and practice of the gospel; and one — anyone; convert him — and become the means of bringing him back into that way from which he had wandered; let him know — he has been enabled to bring about such good work; that he who converteth a sinner from the error of his way — From the false doctrine and bad practice to which he had turned aside, shall produce a much happier effect than any miraculous cure of the body; for he shall save a precious immortal soul from spiritual and eternal death, and shall hide a multitude of sins — Namely, the sins of the persons thus converted, which shall no more, how many soever they are, be remembered to his condemnation. "The covering of sin is a phrase which often occurs in the Old Testament and always signifies the pardoning of sin. Nor has it any other meaning here. For surely it cannot be the apostle's intention to tell us that the turning of a sinner from the error of his ways will conceal from the eye of God's justice a multitude of sins committed by the person who does this charitable office if he continueth in them. Such a person needs himself to be turned from the error of his way so that his soul may be saved from death. St. Peter has a similar expression (1 Peter 4:8,) "love covereth a multitude of sins"; not, however, in the person who is possessed of love, but in the person who is the object of his love."