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 by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of 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.
Our verses today were written by James, the half brother of Jesus and the head of the church in Jerusalem. He addresses – in the strongest language – the stumbling block of pursuit of wealth and money, power and influence in this world which can become a powerful and destructive force in our lives. Wealth is not in itself evil but when pursuit of material goods becomes an end in itself, faith in temporal security can blind us to the fact that judgment and eternity are ahead. The things of this world are transitory and volatile and the very thing that many live for is corrupt at its core – James warns that the inevitable day of reckoning will come. Pursuit and trust in wealth and power leads to neglect of pursuing God
We live in a culture of greed and materialism. We judge people daily more from their material wealth and influence than for their character with the result that many are discontent with what they have. A popular position today is that wealth translates to success and happiness. On the contrary, material goods will never satisfy; our deepest yearnings are for something else and James is in effect saying that Christianity puts us on the correct track. He also warns that those blind to the sovereignty of God exposes them to divine wrath in language expressing deepest distress. Many who suppose they are accumulating property that may be of use but what they are accumulating is a fearful treasure against a day of final retribution – the crux of the matter is in how property is gained and held. We see signs of the folly in this everywhere.
James is calling Christians to think on those who reject Christianity – those hardened in unbelief. The judgment of God will come upon them and their future is misery arising from the very things they valued which will become a witness against them. I’m closing with Shakespeare from his chronicle of Henry VIII where Cardinal Wolsey, suddenly stripped of power and wealth laments, “Had I but served my God with half the zeal I served my king, He would not in mine age left me naked to mine enemies”.
,