Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you!  (2) Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten.  (3) Your gold and silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire.  You have heaped up treasure in the last days.  (4) Indeed the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of the Sabaoth.  (5) You have lived on the earth in pleasure and luxury; you have fattened your hearts as in a day of slaughter.  (6) You have condemned, you have murdered the just; he does not resist you.

James, half brother of Jesus and head of the ancient church at Jerusalem, wrote these verses in a letter sent to the persecuted faithful for two reasons; to remind the reader of the enduring, eternal spiritual existence in Christ and to encourage the endurance of the faithful by contemplation of the sure judgment of God of all men – the faithful have been made right with God in Christ – and the destruction of all of this world

In our verses today, James is not calling the rich unbelievers  to repentance but he is pointing out to the poor and oppressed faithful of the early church that wealth without God is futile. James does not mean to indiscriminately condemn all who are rich but only those who have been corrupted by worldly offerings. James ridicules the ephemeral riches of this world and the fruitless pursuit of money, power, luxury and excessive ease – the snares of this world.  James goes on to condemn the cruelty of avarice – the cheating and abusing of others for the foolishness of worldly riches and approval which will not last.

In our culture today we are living in a crowd – solitude is hard to find and less than desirable. Now Christianity is not meant to be a solitary affair but beware the collectivism of secular life which exists for our natural goals; safety, education, etc.  but not for our supernatural life.  The faithful have one foot in both worlds and can easily be tempted and trapped by the lure of a life of pleasure, power and celebrity in this world.  Money itself is not evil – the apostle Paul called it a root of all sorts of evil – but money and power and pride can corrupt.  James is warning the early Christians to keep their eyes on the ball.