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Date: February 13, 1950Place: Jordan Road, Kowloon, Hong KongScripture Reading: James 5:1-5
How shall I follow Him I serve?
How shall I copy Him I love?
Nor from those blessed footsteps swerve,
Which lead me to His seat above?
Privations, sorrows, bitter scorn,
The life of toil, the mean abode,
The faithless kiss, the crown of thorn—
Are these the consecrated road?
Lord, should my path thro' suff'ring lie,
Forbid it I should e'er repine;
Still let me turn to Calvary,
Nor heed my griefs, rememb'ring Thine.
O let me think how Thou didst leave
Untasted every pure delight,
To fast, to faint, to watch, to grieve,
The toilsome day, the homeless night:
To faint, to grieve, to die for me!
Thou camest, not Thyself to please;
And, dear as earthly comforts be,
Shall I not love Thee more than these?
(Hymns, #462)
Stanza 4 describes the Lord's work, but this description is still somewhat objective. Stanza 5 brings a subjective tone to the hymn: "for me!" He came for me! The word to appears here three times, and they are somewhat different from the previous stanza. The Lord not only grieved and fainted for us, but died for us. The Lord's goal was to accomplish God's work of redemption for us; He did not come to please Himself. Although "earthly comforts" are hard to give up, the Lord's love enables us to overcome them. The hymn concludes with a question.
This song describes a person who was once very prosperous and successful in the world, but who forsook everything for the Lord. We can sense the height that his spirit has soared.
In 1924 I chose this hymn for the brothers and sisters to sing in the meeting. They sang well with spirit and with much feeling; their voices were loud. While they were singing, I was meditating on the song. It is sometimes difficult to meditate on some hymns if they are sung too loudly. Some hymns which are suitable for meditation cannot be sung loudly at all. Between 1923 and 1924, a few of us young people were zealous for the Lord. One couple among us considered quitting their jobs to work full-time for the Lord. They felt unsure about their future. While they sat quietly this way, they began to sing this hymn. As they sang they made the decision to serve the Lord. This hymn has a grand feeling to it, yet it is not overbearing. Some people are carried away by the grand feeling of a song, yet they do not touch the tender spirit behind the song. When this couple sang this song, they touched the tender feeling behind it. If we feel that our future is unsure, we can try to sing this song and offer ourselves once more to God.
James 5 begins with the words come now. This is an exclamation that is rarely used in the New Testament. When the apostle James came to this point, he uttered a sigh. He even wrote down his sigh, because he considered what followed to be totally wrong. It was something that should not happen at all. He lamented, "You rich, weep, howling over your miseries." Weeping is soft crying, while howling is loud wailing. All the rich men cry in a loud or soft voice because "miseries...are coming upon you!" They were about to go through God's ordained sufferings. They should not rejoice but should sorrow.
What has happened in recent days should not be surprising to Christians at all. Before the Lord's imminent coming, there will be clear signs. During this time, men will accumulate wealth in an unprecedented way. In other words, no other age will see as much wealth as the age immediately preceding the Lord's return. In the end time, the world will pay much attention to the accumulation of wealth. When men talked about wealth just a half century to a century ago, they meant something different from what is implied today. In every age there were rich men, but there has never been a time when there were so many rich men. In the past rich men were called millionaires. Now some people make U.S. $1,300 every second. In less than twenty minutes, they are millionaires. The rich of the past cannot be called rich when compared to the rich of this age.
Paul said in 1 Timothy 6:8 that we should be content with having food and covering. Today men not only have food and covering; they have many more things. They have much gold and silver in the bank. This is the reason James sighed that the garments of the rich have become moth-eaten, and their gold and silver have rusted. This is more than a matter of just having food and covering. It is a matter of unused garments being eaten up by moths. In other words, it is not a matter of exhorting men to be content with their covering. They have too many garments, and they have no more use for them. Since these garments are useless, they are eaten up by moths. Today the world is accumulating wealth at a maddening pace. The number of garments some have accumulated could last for two thousand years. Many of them are just idly laying around. These ones also accumulate much gold and silver. This gold and silver have become so useless that they have become corrupted and rusted.
James pointed out that when garments are moth-eaten and gold and silver have rusted, it is time for judgment. This is the ground for God's judgment on men. Please remember that all men will stand before the judgment seat of God. Some will defend their accumulation, but no matter what they say, God will point His finger at the holes in their garments and the rust on their gold and silver and ask, "Why did you accumulate so much when you had no need?" The rust of the gold and silver will not only be a testimony against them, but it will eat their flesh like fire. This probably refers to the burning of the lake of fire. This fire will scorch them and burn away their flesh; it will try them.
As a man accumulates more, he will have more trouble, he will be more bound, and he will fall into more sin. Areas under Communist rule have learned the truth of James 5. Let me relate a story to you. A brother from the countryside had a set of redwood furniture. He was moved in his spirit to sell it but was unwilling to give it up. Later his village experienced a change, and he decided to give the furniture away, but nobody wanted it. He was so afraid of being purged by the Communists that eventually he ran away to Shanghai.
The book of James was written nineteen hundred years ago. Yet it speaks of the worker-capitalist dispute. It says that problems arise because the rich are too rich, and the workers are exploited. It is unfortunate that the Marxists do not pay attention to the word of the Bible which precedes them by eighteen hundred years. The word withheld means to keep back the wages of the workers. Everyone who studies Marxism knows that this is the exploitation of workers, the so-called "surplus value" of the workers. Karl Marx lived in the last century. He wrote a book called Das Kapital in which he talked about the capitalists investing money in factories and hiring workers to manufacture goods. Does the profit belong to the capitalists or to the workers? I have no interest in discussing who is right and who is wrong. My interest lies in his claim of the usurpation of the workers' surplus value. The profit is earned through the labor of the workers, yet the employer takes it into his own pocket. While a worker receives a dollar, he actually may be making two dollars, with one of the dollars being retained by the employer. James said that the wages retained by the employer cry out and reach "the ears of the Lord of hosts." Today the changes in China are under God's sovereign hand. It is hard to believe that one-fifth of the inhabitants of this earth are undergoing such a change without God's intervention. I believe God's judgment is in it.
In verse 5 James rebuked the rich for accumulating material goods and gold and silver. Let me say a word of truth: There has never been a time when the world has had as many rich men as we have today. There has never been a time when so much surplus value was taken from workers. There is an abundance of rich men and wealth because many wages are being retained. This is not all. The luxury these rich men enjoy is unprecedented. In the Middle Ages a few noblemen enjoyed some privileges. In the last one or two dynasties in China, only one or two families were able to have the kind of luxury these rich men enjoy today. Throughout history, there has never been a time when there were as many rich men as today. There has never been a time when there were as many material goods and material enjoyment. Not only is there a multiplication of material enjoyment, but there is a multiplication of lustful indulgence. We only need to partially open our eyes to see what I mean. There is an abundance of rich men, riches, and exploited wages of workers. This is the characteristic of this age.
Once a brother told me that a certain man always wears a platinum ring, and the ring is always new because he discards and replaces it when it becomes rusty. This is just like what the Bible speaks of in regard to the rusting of gold and silver. Once it rusts, the owner discards it. For such hedonists and seekers of pleasure, anything that becomes rusty is no longer an enjoyment to them. Some people have hoarded enough goods to last them two thousand years. No wonder many rich men seek longevity and everlasting life after reaching middle age. They know that they cannot enjoy all their wealth; they cannot use up all their riches even if they live another two thousand years. They seek longevity so that they can enjoy more.
The second part of verse 5 says, "You have nourished your hearts in a day of slaughter." This means that men are like animals before going to the slaughter house — they are well fed and nourished. Once a sister brought three chickens from her village for a brother in Foochow. The brother felt that the chickens were not fat enough. He was reluctant to kill them, so he kept them for a few more days until they became fat. Then he killed them and ate them. This is James's meaning. Those who are accumulating riches and given to enjoyment are nourishing their hearts. Their unprecedented hedonism and license are a kind of fattening of themselves. When the fattening is complete, God will come in to judge them. He will slaughter them, and they will perish in that day.
A Christian should not set his hope on any change in the government. His hope lies in his own deliverance from the bondage of mammon. From the first chapter of James to the end of the fifth chapter, there is no justification for riches and wealth. James 2:5 speaks of the poor in the church being rich in faith, and chapter five speaks of the end of rich men. The current of the age lures men to become rich and to accumulate material goods, but James says that Christians should be long-suffering (5:7). This means they should not try to change their poverty. They should not follow the spirit of the age. The spirit of the age is to compete for riches. Christians, however, should not try to change or alter their poor condition. Only when the Lord comes back again, will all of the problems be solved.
I hope that the brothers and sisters in Hong Kong will not be three or five years behind those in inland China in spiritual growth and life. Today the Holy Spirit is calling; He is calling you to forsake everything to follow the Lord. In the Communist regions, not only does the Lord move and the Holy Spirit call you to forsake everything, but the environment forces you to forsake everything. This world is like fire; you have to run away from it. This world is also like a flesh-eater; it will not allow you to fatten yourself. Today in Hong Kong, this is more than a matter of the Lord's calling. I hope that the brothers and sisters will seize the opportunity, answer the gracious calling of the Lord's Spirit, and serve Him together as one Body.
When I returned to Shanghai from Foochow, many brothers and sisters came to me in tears and said, "Had I listened to your word, the brothers and sisters as well as the church would have had a chance to enjoy my consecration. I do not feel sorry because I have lost my possessions. My greatest sorrow is seeing the things disappear without giving the brothers, the sisters, and the church a chance to enjoy them. The poor did not get them, and neither did the gospel." Letters from many places reported the same thing to me. If we do not seize the opportunity to answer the Spirit's call, one day we will find that our greatest sorrow is the Lord not gaining anything, the church not gaining anything, and the poor not gaining anything.
James 5 is a sign of the end times. It depicts things that will happen before the Lord comes back. James told us to be prepared. We should be aware of these things. The entire New Testament, from Matthew to Revelation, tells us that the church should befriend the poor and stand against the rich. It says that the poor have faith, that the gospel is preached to them, and that God answers the prayer of the poor. Today, if we want to be Christians at all, we should not prepare ourselves to be rich, nor should we dream of becoming rich. Forsaking everything here in Hong Kong is different from forsaking everything under the Communist rule. We are anticipating James's words. Riches will burn a person like fire; they will consume his flesh. We cannot embrace our riches and be burned by them; we cannot allow them to eat up our flesh. On the one hand, this is a consecration. On the other hand, it is a kind of running away. We should get rid of our riches while they are still in our hand. We should offer them up for the brothers, the sisters, and the poor. I hope that we will all think the same thing. We should take the way of voluntary poverty. We should not be forced to become poor. Day by day we should be simple, choosing poverty with all of the children of God. Like Moses, we should not live in a palace while the rest of God's children are outside of it. If we take this way, the church will have a good testimony.
The brothers and sisters in Yi-Yang were thoroughly checked out by the Communists. They investigated them even to the bone and marrow. Their searching was in a sense sharper than the two-edged sword, but they were so surprised by our brothers and sisters. They forced others to share everything in common because they were afraid that no one would do it, but we practice this voluntarily. They said that the biblical practice of having everything in common was wrong, and they told the brothers and sisters in Yi-Yang that no one was allowed to practice this. They said that such a practice would make everyone lazy. We practice having everything in common because we love the brothers, but they thought this was wrong because it would encourage laziness. However, even though we have everything in common, we are not lazy. This bewilders them. The world cannot do this, but we can. This is what it means to be a Christian. The world does not understand that Christians are a peculiar people, but this does not mean that we are promoting Christian socialism. We only do this as a practice. Christian conduct is not based on a set of Christian doctrines or creeds, but is according to the life we have received. Christian behavior has nothing to do with doctrines and teachings; it is related to life. The father did not embrace his prodigal son according to a set of rules. When the prodigal son returned, the father spontaneously stepped forward to kiss him. A Christian acts according to the life within him. For this reason, it is impossible for him to take the way of the world.
In 1925 a British brother in the shipping business received a telegram saying that an eight-thousand-ton ocean liner would arrive in ten days. Another brother was visiting in his house at the time and was about to receive a check for two hundred pounds from him. The check was designated for the work of the gospel. After the visitor left, a telegram arrived and informed the shipping brother that the ship had sunk, along with all the cargo on board. He rang a bell and asked for men to recall the visiting brother. He told him that the ship was lost and that he had to write a new check. He took the old check and wrote another one for five thousand pounds, saying, "Hurry up and go. Spend this on the Lord." The visitor thought that this brother was out of his mind. Having lost his ship, he should have scaled down his giving. He should have changed the two hundred pounds to fifty pounds, but instead he changed the number, adding more zeros to the check. When he was asked to explain his action, he said, "The sinking of the ship is an urgent heavenly telegram from God. He does not want me to accumulate any wealth on earth! Since God does not want me to manage this money, I have to spend it on the Lord while it is still in my hand." The visiting brother took the check with tears and said, "I have never seen anyone do this before."
I am saying this to you not for the purpose of fund-raising. I am saying this to let all the brothers and sisters throughout the whole world know that the day of the Lord is approaching! We have to spend whatever we have on the Lord, while the money is still useful. In this passage, James does not tell us the result of the capitalist-worker dispute. That is not his point. He tells us that the Lord is coming! Let me shout again, "The Lord is coming soon!" Perhaps we cannot see other signs, but we can surely see this sign. We have to endure. While the sign is still here, we have to offer up the money we have in our hand. I truly hope that when the Lord comes back the second time, none of us will miss Him again. It is bad enough to miss Him once. It is bad enough to fail once. We must not miss Him the second time. We must not fail the second time.
