Sermon Tone Analysis

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! Presumption and Perversion (James 4:13 to 5:6)
A song that was popular boasted, "I did it my way."
James confronted the greedy, affluent business community with withering denunciation.
The previous section condemned Christians' love of the world (4:4).
That love demonstrated itself in the affluent people's sins.
James targeted two groups: merchants (4:13-17) and landlords (5:1-6).
Presumption, arrogance, and exploitation marked their lives.
!! Mistaken Merchants (4:13-17)
Mercenary merchants mistook their plans for God's plans.
They thought that they could play God with their own futures.
People's desire to control the future shows the futility of such arrogant planning.
No one on earth ever tried to control his future as the Egyptian pharaohs tried to control theirs.
Each one exploited thousands of people for dozens of years to assure his future.
Their efforts failed.
The earliest pharaohs tried to ensure their futures by having their bodies buried in above-the-ground pyramids like those at Giza near Cairo.
Within decades, grave robbers looted the tombs and stole the mummies.
Then, later pharaohs moved their tombs three hundred and fifty miles up the Nile to Luxor (ancient Thebes).
There, in a remote area that resembles a moonscape, the pharaohs carved their tombs out from the solid stones under the ground.
The pharaohs literally started planning their tombs at the time of their coronation.
Yet despite the remote site, the strict secrecy, and diversionary shafts, the tombs were plundered soon after they were sealed.
The lust for gold and hatred for enemies spoiled the pharaohs' plans.
Out of more than sixty tombs in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings at Luxor, only one tomb remained almost untouched—that of Tutankhamon, "King Tut." History teaches a striking lesson from those plundered tombs: Those who worked the hardest to secure their futures without God lost the most.
God's Word teaches the same truth.
!!! Perilous Planning (4:13)
A group of merchants eagerly riveted their attention to a map of the Roman Empire.
In the electric atmosphere of anticipation, they planned when and where they would go, how long they would stay, and how much money they would make.
A confident attitude of materialistic certainty filled the room.
Did James consider that unethical?
No, he did not consider making business plans unethical.
He stated that making plans without acknowledging God's sovereignty was illogical and unspiritual.
It was illogical because one did not even know what the next day would hold (4:14).
It was unspiritual because it did not reckon with God's will (4:15).
The background of James 4:13 reflects the Jewish genius for business.
That genius developed during the Babylonian captivity.
Documents discovered in Babylon reveal the intensive Jewish commercial transactions there.
The Jews' language after the captivity, Aramaic, became the language of trade.
The Mishna, a collection of Jewish precepts, contains extensive advice on personal conduct by Jewish traveling businessmen.
It reveals that the Jews were involved in international traffic in silk, satin, vases of gold, mirrors, and even slaves.
The word "trade" (v.
13) reflected the ambitious, traveling wholesaler rather than the local retailer.
James 4:13 pictures a group of Jews or Jewish Christians who were ambitious businessmen with big plans for the future.
In every way, the businessmen demonstrated a worldly presumption about the future.
They presumed about time: "today or tomorrow."
This attitude suggested that opportunity for future business rested in their power.
They presumed about mobility: "We will go."
No human can say for certain whether he or she will be able to move a single body part tomorrow.
No one ever slams a car door or walks down an airplane's loading ramp with any certainty of destination.
They presumed about location: "such and such a town."
The English translation does not catch the significance of the Greek idiom.
In Greek, the expression suggests definite plans about were they would go.
They had a cock-sure attitude about their destination in business travel.
They presumed about their durability: "spend a year there."
In arrogance, they acted as if they could assure their longevity.
Most of all, the businessmen made an arrogant presumption about their success: "trade and get gain."
Here, the merchants betrayed the mainspring that wound up their lives and made them tick.
Everything grounded itself in personal, material gain.
James arranged the verbs in 4:13 to end in this climax.
The hidden agenda behind all of the businessmen's proud presumption about the future was personal gain.
James did not mean that sound business planning is sinful.
He certainly did not mean that business travel never should be planned.
He did indicate that every plan for the future should be submitted to God's sovereignty.
The psalmist wrote: "Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act" (Ps.
37:5).
A simple, practical plan commends itself for such submission of the future to the Lord.
Take time every morning to consider the day's agenda before God.
Take an hour at the end of every week to submit the coming week's agenda to the Lord.
Take a day every month to reflect on your life's goals and their relationship to God's will.
These planned checkpoints will enable you to keep the tentative nature of your future clearly in focus.
What people plan and what happens often contrast strikingly.
In 1923, an important planning meeting took place at the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago.
"Attending this meeting were nine of the worlds most successful financiers.
Those present were: the president of the largest independent steel company; the president of the largest utility company; the president of the largest gas company; the greatest wheat speculator; the president of the New York Stock Exchange; a member of the President's cabinet; the greatest 'bear' in wall street; head of the world's greatest monopoly; president of the Bank of International Settlements."
An investigator determined the destiny of the nine men twenty-five years later.
The president of the steel company lived on borrowed money the last five years of his life and died bankrupt.
"The president of the greatest utility company... died a fugitive from justice and penniless in a foreign land.
The president of the largest gas company... was insane.
The greatest wheat speculator... died abroad, insolvent.
The president of the New York Stock Exchange... was... released from Sing Sing Penitentiary.
The member of the President's cabinet... was pardoned from prison so he could die at home.
The greatest 'bear' in Wall Street... died a suicide.
The head of the greatest monopoly... died a suicide.
The president of the Bank of International Settlements... died a suicide."
Even though they planned the future for personal gain, the future they planned did not happen.
!!! Future Frailty (4:14)
Those who make plans for future years cannot be certain about tomorrow: "whereas you do not know about tomorrow" (4:14).
Jesus told the parable of the big fool with little barns.
He, too, was certain that he had many years to build and to gather.
In a single night, his soul was required of him (Luke 12:16-21).
He worried about little barns and thought that he had big amounts of time.
Instead of concern about bigger barns, he should have pondered the possibility of less time to live.
In every generation, people trip over the trap of what is really big and what is really little.
The correct perspective recognizes the finitude and frailty of human life: "What is your life?
For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes" (4:14).
Literally, James's language suggests that human life is a phenomenon for a little while and suddenly is no longer a phenomenon.
The Bible uses a variety of metaphors to express the brevity of life: a declining shadow (Ps.
102:11), a whiff of breath (Job 7:7), a vanishing cloud (Job 7:9), and a wild flower (Ps.
103:15).
Robert Burns, whose tragic life underscored his poems, wrote poignantly of life's brief pleasure:
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But pleasures are like poppies spread:
You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed;
Or like the snowfalls in the river,
A moment white—then melts for ever.
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