My Brother’s Keeper - James 5:19-20 Series

James 5:19 My brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back, 20 remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and cover over a multitude of sins.

Introduction

If there were some kind of budget crisis in the kingdom of God, so that all non-essential personnel got sent home, what would happen to you? How important is your job in the church? Would you be one of the ones who got sent home, or would you be part of the skeleton crew that stayed on to keep things operational? What would you do if God came up to you and gave you a job offer for some position in the kingdom that was critically important? What if God gave you a job that involved saving lives? In the last two verses of the book, James lets us know about a job opening in the kingdom, and in verse 20 he tells us that anyone who does this job will save people from death.

James 5:19 My brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back, 20 remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and cover over a multitude of sins.

One of the most meaningful, powerful, world–changing things a human being could possibly do is to rescue a wandering sinner.

Prone to Wander

Wandering is a real problem. James warned us back in chapter 1 not to wander. In the discussion about temptation he says:

James 1:16 Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers.

That word translated deceived is this same word for wander. So he warned us at the outset – don’t wander. We have to be warned about that because we are all so prone to wander. For the past 250 years the church has been singing, “Prone to wander, Lord I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love.” There is such a thing as spiritual decay. The person in this room who is the closest to God - the person with the strongest faith, the greatest personal holiness the deepest love for God – whoever that person is, could be wandering from the truth six months from now,. Wandering is such a common experience that we actually sing about it. Even after his warning in chapter 1, and all of his instruction throughout the book, James knows it is still going to happen. So in the closing verses of the book he sets up a search and rescue mission. James is handing the baton to us. He spent the whole book pulling everybody back on track, and now he wants us to pick up where he left off and keep that work going indefinitely.

Why the Rain Prayer Instead of the Resurrection Prayer?

The only passage in the entire New Testament that teaches about the topic of physical healing is James 5:14-16. And the message of those three verses is basically this: “Pray for it.” That is his instruction to the church about physical healing – ask God for healing, and He will answer that prayer, because prayer is powerful and effective. And to illustrate that, James pointed us to Elijah. Now let me ask you a question that we didn’t get to last week. If you are writing a passage on how God will answer prayers for healing, and you decide to use Elijah as your example, wouldn’t the logical thing be to use the time when Elijah prayed for God to raise the widow’s son from the dead? That is the ultimate example of someone praying for healing and getting the prayer answered. What a perfect story to use for this context of praying for healing. And it’s not like James didn’t think of it – it is recorded in the same chapter as the drought. In fact, it is part of the same story - it happened during the drought. So why would James focus on stopping and starting the rain instead of on the resurrection?

I believe the answer to that question is going to help us understand the last two verses of the book of James. What was that drought all about in 1 Kings? It was God’s judgment on Israel for worshiping idols.

Deuteronomy 11:13 if you faithfully obey the commands I am giving you today … 14 then I will send rain on your land in its season, both autumn and spring rains … 16 Be careful, or you will be enticed to turn away … 17 Then the LORD …will shut the heavens so that it will not rain

James actually alluded to that passage back in verse 7 when he talked about the autumn and spring rains. The drought that Elijah prayed for was for this exact reason – judgment on the people for turning away from God. And that is probably also the significance of the 3 ½ years.