(Audio version; Music: "The Hurt & The Healer" and "Bring The Rain" by: MercyMe)
Introduction
I watched a
movie the other night with my wife and daughter called God’s Not Dead. I know many of you who are reading this haven’t
seen the movie and don’t have access to the movie. So this is going to be a
spoiler alert—It’s a fairly low budget film from Hollywood’s perspective which
has, unfortunately, become one of the trademarks for Christian films. Nevertheless,
it was a pretty good film so if you do get a chance to see it, I think you’ll
like it as long as you’re not expecting a cinematic masterpiece. There were
various sub-plots throughout the film depicting different people either
accepting Christ as their Savior or rejecting Him. However, the main plot
revolved around a college philosophy professor who, not surprisingly was an atheist,
and a freshman student who was a Christian. The professor proclaimed to His
students that the idea of God was dead and that reason and intellect ruled
supreme. The freshman student disagreed and that set the stage for a challenge
by the professor to the student to prove to the class that God’s not dead. During
the final climactic struggle of ideas between student and professor, the
student confronted the professor regarding his obvious disdain for a God he
didn’t even believe existed. When the student pressed the professor for an
explanation of why he hated a God he didn’t even believe in, the professor
confessed that he was at one point a Christian when he was young boy. He
explained that his mother had become ill with cancer and although he prayed and
prayed and prayed, his mother, whom he cherished, still died. It was at that
point that he said he stopped believing in God. I won’t spoil the rest of the
movie for those of you who want to see it but it does have a happy ending.
It is no
surprise that the film depicted an atheist that was once a Christian who at
some point became disenchanted with the life of being a follower of Christ. This
is actually common in real life as well—especially when it comes to Unanswered Prayers. I’ll be honest with
you, this is where I empathize with atheists. In large part because I’ve prayed
at the bedside of a number of very sick people, some of whom where my friends,
and unfortunately most of them still died. I prayed, probably hundreds of times
when I was growing up for God to get my dad to stop drinking and hitting me—nothing
changed. How many times have you prayed for your child to stop the drugs just
to find yourself delivering him or her to rehab for the umpteenth time? How long
have you been praying for God to bless you with a child and still you are
childless? How often have you prayed that your spouse would love you more than
their work or their other distractions just to watch them put yet another “thing”
ahead of you? How long have you prayed for something that for all intents and
purposes seems perfectly reasonable yet you are left with only Unanswered Prayers? You’ve prayed for
God to send you a spouse; You’ve prayed for God to heal someone you love;
You’ve prayed for God to pave the way to get into graduate school; You’ve
prayed for God to provide you with a new job or any job for that matter; You’ve
prayed for God to help you overcome a particularly unrelenting sin in your
life. And what do you get for all your fervent, sincere, and repeated prayers?
Sometimes you get the answer you’re hoping for and life is great and being a
follower is easy. However, most of the time, at least in my case, we’re left
with Unanswered Prayers and that’s
when being a follower of Christ is very difficult. That’s when we arrive at the
same fork in the road where many atheists have stood and decided that the
disappointment and pain from Unanswered
Prayers is unacceptable and unbearable and they take the fork in the road
that leads to a life of unbelief. For the rest of us who have taken the fork in
the road that leads to a life of continued belief, we have to somehow come to
terms with a life of Unanswered Prayers
in the face of seemingly clear biblical support that God answers all prayers
positively that are offered in faith.
Subject Text
James 5:13-20
13Is
any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs
of praise. 14Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of
the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15And
the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise
him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. 16Therefore confess
your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The
prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. 17Elijah was a
man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not
rain on the land for three and a half years. 18Again he prayed, and
the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops. 19My brothers,
if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back, 20remember
this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death
and cover over a multitude of sins.
Context
This letter
was written by Jesus’ brother who was a leader of the Church in Jerusalem.
Generally, the letter is intended to expose some hypocritical practices like
playing favorites and to teach appropriate Christian behavior like putting what
they heard and said they believed into action. Specifically, however, James was
concerned about the persecution of a group of Christians who were once part of
the Church in Jerusalem. James wanted them to remain unified and avoid internal
disputes while striving to better their lot in life. Finally, James wanted them
to be patient in their suffering and stand firm in their faith. James’ audience
was clearly struggling with a number of issues that James is seeking to clarify
including the place of prayer in their lives.
Text Analysis
13Is
any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs
of praise.
Just like
we have a tendency to separate the sacred from the secular, we tend to turn to
God when we’re broken and in trouble but forget about Him when we’re happy. What
James is saying in v. 13, though, is
that our lives can never be separated from God during any times—good or bad. Remember
it is always about relationship with God. I imagine we’ve all had a friend at
some point who comes to us only after they’ve messed up their lives or need
something from us. How do you feel about that kind of friendship? It’s not very
good is it? But we’ve also had that friend who is present and available for the
good and bad parts of life—ours and theirs. Relationship with that person is usually
rich and meaningful. A deep and meaningful relationship is the type of
relationship God desires with us. However, that’s not possible if the only time
we go to Him is when our lives are on fire and we need Him to put out the
flames. God wants to know that we depend on Him to care for us but He also
wants to be part of the celebration of our lives. Here’s what you need to
understand about v. 13. James seems
to set up a sharp distinction between prayer and praise. Prayer is associated
with trouble and praise is associated with happiness. I will concede that the
two may look and sound differently, but that’s as far as I’m willing to go
based on the experience of my own life virtually every week. My life has often
seen the two reversed where I pray during the times when my life seems to be
working and I praise God during some of the darker hours of my life. I don’t
think James is so much prescribing a formula as much as he is describing a
principle of including God in all aspects of our lives in whatever form that
might take. Grammatically, the word James uses for “pray” is intended to convey
a continuous action not a singular even. In other words, James isn’t saying
that we are to shoot up a quick prayer to God for our troubles as though we are
checking it off our to-do list. Instead, it has a sense of abiding in God
particularly during the difficulties of our lives.
“Christians pray both in times of
trouble and in times of joy. In times of trouble Christians often fall victim
to self-pity, anger, or morbid introspection. James directed Christians to pray
rather than surrender to these wrong responses. Trouble includes physical and emotional stress arising from both
ordinary trials and special spiritual difficulties. Sufferers must not stop
their prayers after a quick prayer for help. They must live in an attitude of
prayer. Happy describes a cheerful,
elated mood. This is not a giddy, flippant outlook but a mood of cheer and
optimism. Prosperity and pleasant experiences in life can cause a person to
forsake God due to complacency or worldly contentment. Instead, life’s good
times should lead us to sing songs of praise to God as the author of the
blessings…This command does not demand the use of music but calls for the
expression of words or thoughts to praise or thank God. Christians who face
trouble often lose their awareness of the presence of God due to gloom.
Christians who have elation tend to forget God in the joy of their good
success. Both darkness and sunshine should lead believers to a consciousness of
God.”[1]
14Is any one of you sick? He
should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil
in the name of the Lord. 15And the prayer offered in faith will make
the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be
forgiven. 16Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for
each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful
and effective.
These are
particularly troublesome verses from our Subject
Text. On paper, James’ instruction in vv.
14-16 seems perfectly clear and without equivocation. But most, if not all
of us, know that it usually doesn’t work in real life. And this is precisely
the intersection where so many atheists relinquished their faith and now travel
the road of unbelief. I’ll be honest with you, I’ve been at this intersection
more than once in my life. A number of years ago, a very good friend of mine
who was an elder of our church and still a young man, was diagnosed with a
particularly heinous form of cancer. Many of us prayed for him—men and women
far more righteous and godly than me. Other elders of the church prayed for him
and anointed him with oil and do you know what happened to him after years of
brutal treatments and equally brutal and invasive surgeries? He died and left
behind a young wife and their young daughter as well as a grieving
congregation. So what happened? We tend to make excuses to answer the questions
surrounding these verses to avoid the uncomfortable situation that arises
whenever the reality of life smashes into the immovable rock of God’s Word. So,
without excuses, we need to take a hard look at these verses and see what they are and what they are not saying. James is
saying that our prayers will open the door to miraculous healing. James is not saying that God will provide
healing even if that healing is not according to His will just because a prayer
for healing was offered in faith by someone righteous. It is important to
remember the over-arching principle of the Bible—nothing occurs that God does
not allow according to His will. Just because something doesn’t make sense to
us, like the tragic death of a young man who was a devout man of God, a loving
husband and father, and a faithful friend, doesn’t mean that it occurred
outside of God’s sovereignty.
I’m not
making any excuse for what seems like a pretty simple teaching by James. If
someone is sick and a righteous person prays for them and anoints them with
oil, they’ll be healed. Simple right? Except it presumes that it is God’s will
that all people should never be sick in this life. I want you to think about
that for a minute. Does that conform to reality? Do Christians only die of old
age? Obviously not. Are they doing something wrong? Do they not have the right
people praying for them? Do they not deserve to be healed? Do they not have
enough faith? Are they not righteous enough? Here’s the answer: They’re
probably not doing something wrong. They probably have the right people praying
for them. They probably deserve to be healed. They probably have enough faith.
And if they are believers then they are righteous enough. What they probably
don’t have is God’s consent to the longed-for healing. Even Paul said he asked
God to remove a thorn from his side that caused him considerable anguish. But
God didn’t see fit to remove Paul’s thorn because God determined that there was
something more important than Paul’s comfort and relief. God determined to
demonstrate His strength through Paul’s weakness.
“Certain
preachers and writers make a great deal of this call for faith, insisting that
a believer simply needs to have enough faith in order to receive healing from
the Lord. The devastating result of this line of thinking is that believers who
are not healed when they pray must deal with a twofold burden: added to their
remaining physical challenge is the assumption that they lack sufficient faith.
But this way of looking at faith and its results is profoundly unbiblical. And,
in James, at least, the prayer of faith that heals in v. 15 is offered not by
the sufferer but by the elders (v. 14). Are the elders, therefore, at fault
when their prayer for healing does not bring results in a reasonable amount of
time? Would the healing have taken place if they had just believed?
Answering
such a question involves us in the finely nuanced broader issue of the
relationship between God’s sovereignty and our prayers. But we can say this
much. The faith exercised in prayer is faith in the God who sovereignly
accomplishes his will. When we pray, our faith recognizes, explicitly or
implicitly, the overruling providential purposes of God. We may at times be
given insight into that will, enabling us to pray with absolute confidence in
God’s plan to answer as we ask. But surely these cases are rare—more rare even
than our subjective, emotional desires would lead us to suspect. A prayer for
healing, then, must usually be qualified by a recognition that God’s will in
the matter is supreme. And it is clear in the NT that God does not always will to heal the believer.
Paul’s own prayer for his healing, offered three times, was not answered; God
had a purpose in allowing the ‘thorn in the flesh,’ that ‘messenger of Satan,’
to remain (2 Cor 12:7-9). Note also Titus 3:20, where Paul mentions that ‘he
left Tromphimus sick in Miletus.’ The faith with which we pray is always faith
in the God whose will is supreme and best; only sometimes does this faith
include assurance that a particular request is within that will. This is
exactly the qualification that is needed to understand Jesus’ own promise: ‘You
may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it’ (John 14:14). To ask ‘in
Jesus’ name’ means not simply to utter his name, but to take into account his
will. Only those requests offered ‘in that will’ are granted. Prayer for
healing offered in the confidence that God will answer that prayer does bring
healing; but only when it is God’s will to heal will that faith, itself a gift
of God, be present.”[2]
17Elijah was a man just like us.
He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for
three and a half years. 18Again he prayed, and the heavens gave
rain, and the earth produced its crops.
James
invokes the Old Testament story of Elijah for his audience in vv. 17-18 to illustrate his point about
the power of prayer. He’s saying that Elijah was just a regular person like
anyone else. And when Elijah prayed “earnestly,” James is saying that Elijah
prayed with the faith that God would grant his request for the rain to stop and
then commence once again after three and a half years. We might take James’ illustration out of context but remember that
James’ primary audience was Christian Jews who fled Jerusalem. It is highly
unlikely that they took his words out of context. And if we take a closer look
at James’ illustration it will serve to demonstrate that Elijah was only
successful because he offered his prayers in accordance with God’s will. You’ll
find the record of Elijah’s ministry begin in 1 Kings 17. Elijah was prophet of
Israel and Judah during the reign of the evil King Ahab and his equally evil
Queen Jezebel both who worshipped the pagan god Baal and led Israel into this
evil as well. Those who worshipped Baal believed he had the power to bring rain
and ensure a bountiful harvest. This is the context into which Elijah’s ministry
is thrust. So Elijah prayed for the rain to end because he believed it was
completely within the will of God for God to demonstrate exactly who it is that
controls the rain—the God of Israel or the false-god Baal. You see, Elijah’s
primary purpose was to turn Israel’s collective hearts and minds back to their
first love; the one true God; the One who is sovereign over all of creation
including the rain.
“The Kings
account of Elijah’s encounter with Ahab does not refer to Elijah’s prayer
unless the phrase ‘whom I serve’ stands for his prayer indirectly. The kind of
prayer Elijah prayed to stop the rain probably was like what he uttered at the
end of the three-and-a-half-year drought. In 1 Kgs 18:1 the Lord informed
Elijah that he would cause the rain to fall again for his people. Elijah,
fulfilling the prophetic function of mediation, was led to the moment of prayer
for rain that demonstrates the sole lordship of God…Elijah’s prayer included
the following: ‘Answer me, O LORD, answer me, so these people will know that
you, O LORD, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again’ (1 Kgs
18:37). The repetition of this prayer expresses the earnestness of the prophet,
along with the absolute confidence in the purposes of God for wayward Israel. And
we note the intent of the prayer: not merely to demonstrate the power and truth
of God but most of all to fulfill his purpose of converting Israel back to faithfulness…Elijah
was an instrument of God’s lordship not over the regularities of seasonal
rainfall but over the extraordinary regulation of the elements that are the
Lord’s prerogative…
The second
prayer of Elijah reversed the famine-producing effects of the first prayer…God
is always the ‘giver’ of that which is good, of grace, and even of trial that
is meant to convert the sinner and the sinful people of God. God will not
answer prayers to a false god but only the prayers of those who pray faithfully
according to his word that saves and heals. This giving that saves and heals
produced the needed crops after three and a half years of famine…James viewed
Elijah as exemplifying any righteous believer whose prayer is heard by God. The
prophet of God was given wisdom not only to endure his trials but also to
mediate the word of God to his generation. Elijah knew the will of God
concerning the signs of drought and rain; this knowledge was why he prayed so
fervently. By applying Scripture believers can know and should do the will of
God through their own fervent praying, whether it be a matter of planning their
business affairs, persevering through suffering, searching for healing, or
asking for forgiveness of sin.”[3]
19My brothers, if one of you
should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back, 20remember
this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death
and cover over a multitude of sins.
It’s hard
to know how vv. 19-20 fit into the
context of our Subject Text and I
want you to be careful not to read anything into my explanation. It is possible
that some of James’ audience believed that sin is the cause of illness in
people. We can see this in the exchange between Jesus and the disciples when
Jesus healed a man who was blind from birth (Jn 9:2-3). The disciples asked
Jesus whose sin was responsible for the man’s blindness—his or his father’s.
Jesus made it clear that the man’s blindness wasn’t the result of sin. We live
in a broken world of sickness and death and every single person who has been
sick, is sick now, or will be sick in the future, is also a sinner. However, we
must be very, very careful trying to draw a straight line between sin and
sickness. Here’s how far I’m willing to go in terms of a general principle with
respect to the relationship between sin and sickness: According to the account
of Adam and Eve from Genesis, the first sin; original sin, introduce brokenness
into creation. Sin gave birth to all of humanity’s grief, suffering, sickness,
pain, and death. So in that respect, all sickness is the result of sin in a
general sense so it’s not necessary to insist that sickness is the result of
any specific sin even though that could be true in some cases. There is,
however, another type of sickness that afflicts all of us that falls
specifically within the purview of vv.
19-20—spiritual sickness; spiritual sickness that is specifically the
result of sin in our lives and separates us from God. If we read vv. 19-20 in that context then they fit
perfectly in the overall context of sickness and healing. In this case,
spiritual sickness is healed when a person confesses their sins and are
forgiven and once again reconciled to God.
Here’s what I can say about these
verses with certainty—James is talking about our duty to rescue our fellow
Christians who, by their willful sins, have wandered away from what they once
said they believed. James talks about turning the sinner away from the error of
their sins. I hate to tell you this but that means we have a duty to confront
them about their sins. This is the part where it gets really, really hard
because there is such a fine line between tossing a rope around someone’s neck and
strangling them with self-righteous judgment and tossing them a rope in order
to pull them to the safety of being reconciled back to God.
“The
parable of the ‘lost sheep’ reminds the congregation that it is to be a
community of people watching out for the sister and brother, a community in
which members help one another stay on track, to continue to ‘walk in line with
the truth of the Gospel,’ to borrow a phrase from Paul…Out of respect for
another’s ‘privacy’ or ‘rights,’ or out of a philosophy of ‘minding one’s own
business,’ or out of a post-modern sense of ‘tolerance’ and ‘diversity,’ many
believers are reluctant to take up [the] challenge to identify the erring, go
after the wanderers, and bring them back to the right way. That hesitancy has
facilitated many affairs, divorces, acts of dishonesty and acts of abuse.
Individuals facing powerful temptations of deep-rooted tendencies need the
support, encouragement and commitment of their sisters and brother if they are
to rise victorious over the powers that seek to make shipwreck of their faith.”[4]
Application
On the
night when Jesus was betrayed, He was in the Garden of Gethsemane praying. He
was praying one of the most real prayers I’ve every heard, given His
circumstances and what He knew was coming. He prayed, “Father, if there is
another way, then could you please do this another way (Mt 26:36-46).” If you
know or read the events that follow the night in the garden, then you know why
Jesus was asking the Father if He could carry out his plan some other way. I
say it’s one of the most real prayers I ever heard because it’s like so many of
mine and I bet it’s like so many of yours too—prayers that are heard but remain
unanswered. You pray for your marriage to work but it’s still broken and causes
you so much pain and grief every day. You pray for a new job but you continue
to have to labor in a job that dehumanizes and sucks the life out of you. You
pray for a child of your own but you lose a little more hope with every
pregnancy test that comes back negative. You pray for the safety of your family
but Muslims are pressing in around you every day with their evil hatred for
Christians. You pray and pray and pray but all you have to show for all your
prayers is Unanswered Prayers. I
suppose God could be answering the prayers with a “no” but that’s no better
because then we’d be left with unanswered questions of why in place of Unanswered Prayers. Imagine if you had
a sick child and you went to God to ask for healing and God simply said “no”
and allowed your child to die. Do you really think that’s how God operates?
Does God allow children who are sick to die? I’ve been to see the very sick
babies my daughter cares for at Los Angeles Children’s Hospital and I know sick
children do, in fact, die right in the midst of people praying for their
healing. Did God say no to the prayers for healing? Sort of, I guess. But I
think what He is really saying is, “someday I’ll grant you your request but for
now I have a different plan. You might not like it or understand it but I need
you to trust Me that I know what I’m doing.” Of course you don’t actually know
what God is saying so you’re left to struggle with Unanswered Prayers as you stand and stare at the grave of your
child.
[1] Thomas
D. Lea, Hebrews & James—Holman
New Testament Commentary, (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 1999), p.
346.
[2] Douglas
J. Moo, The Letter of James—The
Pillar New Testament Commentary, (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans
Publishing Co., 2000), pp. 244-245.
[3] Kurt A.
Richardson, James—The New American
Commentary, (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 1997), pp. 240-242.
[4] David A.
deSilva, An Introduction to the New
Testament: Contexts, Methods & Ministry Formation, (Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity Press, 2004), p. 296.
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