How to Become An Image Bearer Of Jesus Christ

Grudge not one against another, brethren,

lest ye be condemned: behold, the judge

standeth before the door. Take, my

brethren, but prophets, who have spoken

in the name of the Lord, for an example

of the suffering affliction, and of patience.

Behold, we count them happy which endure.

Ye have heard of the patience of Job,

and have seen the end of the Lord;

that the Lord is very pitiful, and of

tender mercy.

James 5:9: 11

     The translators used the word "grudge" and they may not fully understand that word in our English today.  The Greek word has much more to say about this word so that we can fully understand what it means to "grudge."  It means to crown, to have a inward and unexpressed feeling of sorrow, grief.  The Oriental style of this word means to wail and a consecrated or semi--- liturgical fashion.  It means to lament and James is simply telling us not to do these things against one another.  Gossip is destructive and yet it is so common and I do believe most of us have had gossip at one time another.  Gossip is idle talk and is generally full of nothing more than rumor especially about the private lives of others.  This should not ever be allowed in ourselves and to occur in our congregations.  God, our Savior Jesus Christ hears every word we say in every thought we think and as James says He is standing at the door. That door is you!

     We have examples of how we are to live our lives, to act and to say, and how to be persons who build up others and not tear them down.  We have the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord do what they say must be heeded by as for God inspired him to speak those words.  Once again we have words in our English translation that in today's context would have a different meaning and that word is "pitiful."  So we must look at the Greek to get a full understanding and bring to our day and age English.  The Greek word that we translate "pitiful," means to be compassionate for the ills of others, to be one of tender mercy and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as the Greek word states is full of tender mercy and is compassionate.  Image bearers of Jesus Christ we must demonstrate our Savior in our lives and in our words and to also be compassionate and full of tender mercy. 

     James adds this: "But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: not let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation." Does this mean we are never to utter an oath?  No! It does mean that we are to not use other things to be the basis for our oath. We read in Proverbs: "A soft answer turneth away wrath: Grievous words stir up anger. The tongue of the wise useth knowledge aright: but the mouth of fools poureth out foolishness.  The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good."The writer of Ecclesiastes gives us further understanding of our words and our oath and our vows: "When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for He hath no pleasure in fools: pay that which thou hast vowed.  Better is it that thou shouldest not vow than that shouldest vow and not pay.  Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin; neither say thou be for the angel, that it was an error: wherefore should God be angry at thy voice, and destroy the work of thine hands?" (Ecclesiastes 5: 4 -- 6). A stain upon the Christian Church is divorce.  Within the church divorce equals that of the world and the same lame excuses are given and many of us have been guilty of those lame excuses.  We make a vow only to break it because we said to ourselves and to others it was the wrong thing to do so I am ending this marriage.  We can be thankful that we can come before our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and ask for Him to forgive us and repent of our sins and he is compassionate and full of mercy and forgiveness. 

     Out of our faith comes works and those works include that we do not gossip, and that we keep our vows, and that we are to be merciful and compassionate. This alone sets Authentic Christians from the world. 

A good name is rather to be chosen

     then great riches, and loving

favor rather than silver and gold.

                    Proverbs 22: 1

Examine your faith with Scripture

Richard L. Crumb

What Is Meant: The Early Rain And The Latter Rain?

Be patient therefore, brethren, but coming

love the Lord.  Behold, the husbandman waiteth

for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath

long patients for it, until he received the

early rain and latter rain.  Be ye also patient; 

stablish your hearts: for the coming of the

Lord draweth with nigh.

James 5:7 -- 8

 

 

     Patience, a thing sought after but seldom found, we think we have it when reality are actually impatient.  This impatience you demonstrated by the tapping of the foot, ringing of the hands, and often mumbling to oneself because time is so slow.  Along with impatience and its demonstration can be seen in the complaining by the one claiming to be patient.  The Greek word used in verse seven gives us a better understanding of what James was writing to us about and that we are to have endurance and long-suffering. James was telling us that we need to preserve patiently and to be brave in enduring missed fortunes and troubles even to be patient bearing the offenses and injuries dealt to you by others and that we are to be mild and slow in avenging. today there is a rush to litigate just about every offense that's possible at all one has to do is watch some of the television judge shows and see how picky and minor that is being brought before the judge that should've been handled between two people involved.  We even see this in the churches, unfortunately.

     I grew up on a ranch farm that had peaches, plums, oranges, walnuts, grapes and even pigs and cattle.  And I can fully understand the illustration by James as to the husbandman.  We had to plow land, to trim the end turned the trees and branches of the grapes and to water at the proper time, to spray insecticides to protect the trees and the fruit.  As a farmer, and even you can get the same, we get good rain in the spring, this early rain that is so badly needed to get the growth beginning so that we can have a good crop.  Then, around September comes the latter rain after a hot summer the plants are glad to have this water.  I know it comes in September for often we had to rush out and wrap up the grapes that were drying into raisins so that they did not mildew due to the rain.  As a farmer we also watched the fruit so that we would know when was the best time to pick the fruit, packet for shipping.

     James is telling us to be patient, watchful, until the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Authentic Christians would care for their hearts, as a farmer cares for his trees and vines, and to establish our hearts.  Unfortunately, some men and women who call themselves pastors and theologians have pulled out of these verses words so that they developed doctrines that these verses had nothing to do and yet many people are misled by these men and women.  What I am speaking about is the words early rain and latter rain. The Latter Rain Movement can be found in such churches as the Pentecostals, Charismatics, and others who believe in Dominion theology and restoration theology.  Here is what we need to come to understand from the words of those involved in this doctrine.

     Today men and women are calling themselves modern-day prophets who have received "new revelations" of the end time which had not before been understood by the Church. This "New Breed" of apostles and prophets believe that they've been raised up to assume the role to lead the church to take dominion and execute God's judgments in the world.  Church ministries such as the Vineyard Ministry and the Apostle, Jack Deere, most others who call themselves prophets, Paul Cain and Bob Jones have led and are leading this heretical doctrine.  This is what Paul Cain had to say: “God is raising up a new standard, a new banner if you will, that’s going to radically change the expression, the understanding of Christianity in our generation…God has invited us to have a role in establishing this NEW ORDER of Christianity…God is offering to this generation something He has never offered to any other generation… Beware lest OLD ORDER brethren rob you and steal this hope from you! (2) Bob Jones has received special revelation about this new hope: Bob Kane goes on to say:

"Are you having difficulty discerning or receiving this “new revelation”? Then perhaps you have been interpreting your Bible in the “old way” — comparing Scripture with Scripture, studying diligently to account for every jot and tittle and being careful to rightly divide the Word of truth.  If this describes you, then you belong to the “Old Generation” which will not enter in to “possess the land” in the Latter Rain Revival.  You may even be a member of a denominational church with its dogmatic confession of faith and statement of doctrine. These legalistic forms will be relics of the past in the up and coming “Postdenominational Church.”  

      Latter Rain doctrine is a modern version of the classic heresy of Gnosticism, which taught that a spiritual elite possessed “hidden knowledge” of the divine realm which placed their personal revelations, spiritual experiences, and private interpretation of Scripture above the ordinary revelation of God’s Word. In Latter Rain doctrine, Pentecost was the “former rain” or outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the Church must yet receive a second Holy Spirit visitation. At this time, the Sons of God will be glorified and manifested to all as they establish the Kingdom on earth before Jesus Christ returns bodily. Latter Rain prophets are now preparing multitudes for this transformation. In a 1991 program entitled “Manifested Sons of God,” Morris Cerullo flattered his audience with the following blasphemy,...

     Today people are looking for experiences that make them feel happy and are not taking a hard critical look at the facts and whether or not that which is making them happy is actually founded on Scripture.  The rush to know about when Jesus Christ is coming and the end times as lead to all kinds of teachings making some of the symbols of the helicopters, tanks, and other such things and people are just following like sheep and the goats that are misleading them.

     Yes, we are to be patient, watchful, studying God's Word, praying to our God to lead us into the truth and away from heresies. this is my attempt to show you that there are many such heresies that is infecting and affecting Christianity and we must know about them and turned from them and live according to what Scripture is actually telling us how to live. Establish your hearts and do this by the truths of Scripture and not simply by men and women who are charismatic and seem to speak the truth and we will not know unless we examine what they say according to Scripture.  Will you do it?

 

All the sinners of my people

     shall die by the sword,

which say, The evil shall not 

     overtake nor prevent us.

                         Amos 9:10

 

Do not allow yourself to be fooled

 

Richard L. Crumb

 

     

 

 

What Is The Meaning: To Be Rich?

Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl

for your miseries that shall come upon 

you. Your riches are corrupted, and your

garments are motheaten. Your gold and

silver is candered; and the rust of them

shall be a witness against you, ans shall

eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have 

heaped treasure together for the last

days. Behold, the hire of the laborers

who have reaped down your fields, which

 is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and 

the cries of them which have reaped are 

entered into the ears of the Lord of

Sabbaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure

on the earth, and been wanton; ye have

nourished your hearts, as in a day of

slaughter. Ye have condemned and killed 

the just; and he doth not resist you.

James 5:1-6

      If there is a hard to understand passage in Scripture I believe this is at the top. What is James telling us and those early Christians? Are we to condemn the rich, to being rich? Or, is there something we must take time to understand so that we do not misunderstand and misuse these verses? Remember that James is an instructive book and that he is addressing the errors that are being inflicted upon these early Christians by the Jews who defied them because they believed upon the One the killed and hated: Jesus Christ. Today in one way or the other there are those who are rich and powerful who have enslaved people so that they must work harder and longer just to have a simple life. The rich seem not to care so long as they receive a fortune. It is not being rich that is at question for there is no sin to be rich, it is to those who misuse their influence and money against others. 

     In Proverbs we can read this to give us what God thinks about those who misuse their riches: "He that trusteth in his riches shall fall: but the righteous shall flourish as a branch" (Proverbs 11:28). Some confusion may come by the words: "Go to now" as we do not use that idiom in our English, the Greek word "αγε" means to lead or to come on, or go to so a better rendering would be: "come on."Come on now" you rich men..... and then James tells them what would happen to them for their misusing of their riches..."weep, howl," why? Do their attitudes, their causing some harm to others who are not rich as they will cause them to have misery. Why? Their riches are corrupted, even their clothing is to be as though they are motheaten. Gold, silver, would become rusted, how can this be? Well in those days from the classical writers it appears that gold and silver coins had more alloy than those of ours today and would be subject to rusting, to be of no use, cankerous. This crying, and the loss of good garments, and the making of their riches as no good would bring upon them public shame in the least. It would be those who condemned the Just One, Jesus Christ, and now were condemning the ones following Him who would on the last days heaped upon them by the Lord of the Sabaoth. Notice the word: Sabaoth as this is not the Sabbath, it is more, it is a military term which denotes armies or hosts as in hosts of armies, and carries the meaning that the One who is the Lord of sabaoth is supreme, the One who is all sovereign. 

     These men who ruled over the poor had lived in worldly pleasure, those who filled their hearts desire with worldly things are being laid up to be slaughtered for they have killed the just, and they have not resisted them, but the day is coming when this will all be settled and not to their liking. The just may be killed, may have to suffer under these men but God has not turned aside but remembers this and will bring upon those who are doing this to have full justice applied to them for their sinfulness. 

     Let us apply this to us. We are to be careful what we say or do as was learned in earlier passages. We are to allow faith to lead us to godly works by God and not from our own desires. We are to be kind and loving to others especially those who are are brothers and sisters. To be rich is not necessarily wrong or sin. One can attempt to rule over others as though they were more righteous, more godly, more powerful, etc., and by this misuse people. The rich will be slaughtered and be condemned, now and in the last days. 

     Let us nourish our hearts, not with worldly ideas and things, no, rather with the word of God. We then find that this pleases God and we become useful to God to accomplish the purpose for why we exist now and wait to go to heaven in the future. We have the responsibility to disciple people, to bring to the world the Gospel. If we are busy with this we will not need to feeling or desire to be rich. We may be poor in the sight of the world and others, but we will be rich in the eyes of God. 

The mouth of the righteous

     speaketh wisdom, and his

tongue talketh of judgment. 

     The law of his God is in his

heart; none of his steps shall slide.

                   Proverbs 11:30-31

Living faith leads to righteousness

Richard L. Crumb