Judgment on the Wicked Rich - a podcast by Rev. W. Reid Hankins

Sermon preached on James 5:1-6 by Rev. W. Reid Hankins during the Morning Worship Service at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 05/09/2021 in Novato, CA.















Sermon Manuscript







Our passage for today speaks a word of judgment on the wicked rich. This word of judgment reads much like we see among the Old Testament prophets where they are speaking to God’s people and take an aside to declare judgment on the nations. Presumably, those prophets would speak such judgment on the nations not so much for the nations to hear it, but for God’s people to hear it. It would have been to God’s people to know that God would deal with the wicked, especially in cases when certain nations had been afflicting God’s people. So then too, this passage deals with rich wicked people who had afflicted the righteous. This passage of judgment then is offered to encourage those afflicted by such condemned people.







But we can note that structurally this passage begins the same way last passage did in chapter 4 verse 13. There it said, “Come now you who say”, and here it says, “Come now you rich.” We mentioned last week that this uses a literary device called apostrophe to interrupt the main dialogue and parenthetically address a third person. It’s the only place James uses this structure in the whole letter and they are back-to-back passages. Yet, while last week could easily have addressed itself to Christians, this passage clearly addresses itself to non-Christians, confronting the wicked rich. Arguably the similar structure between this passage and last is to warn those Christians who might aspire to riches through their business plans to make sure they don’t fall into the trap of the wicked rich here are denounced in judgment.







So, as Christians we can see two main applications by which we can approach today’s passage. This judgment oracle against the wicked rich can serve to comfort us who are God’s people who have been afflicted by such. It comforts us to know that God sees our afflictions and will ultimately vindicate us and deliver us from them. But this judgment oracle also warns us not to become like such people who have rejected Christ and disregarded righteousness for the fleeting riches of this world. So then, with this two-pronged framework of application in mind, let us dig into today’s passage that declares judgment on the wicked rich.







In our first point then, we will observe how James describes these wicked rich and their sins. I’ll start by explaining that I’m referring to them as “wicked rich” and not simply as the “rich” to bring out a good and necessary conclusion we must have in light of the rest of Scripture. James must not be speaking against any and all rich people as being under God’s judgment, because Scripture speaks of many godly people who were rich and were blessed by God. James even tells us of one in this very chapter, in verse 11, namely Job. James even commends Job’s example to us. So, James can’t be speaking judgment on anyone who has riches. Riches aren’t the problem, and should a Christian find themselves rich in this life, it is a blessing to steward righteously to the glory of God. Rather, what we find here is that James is addressing a stereotypical rich person of the day whose riches were attributed in one way or another to various aspects of their wickedness and how they afflict others, particularly the godly. For James to simply refer to them as the “rich” here is basically a form a prophetic shorthand. I mentioned this back in chapter 2 as well, where James employed similar language. So then, let’s observe in this first point what kind of rich people that James is condemning here. As we do that, we’ll see that is fitting to refer to such as the wicked rich.







So, then we see starting in verse 2 that these rich people have ...

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