James 5:8

Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. PATIENT - `long-suffering.' COMING ... DRAWETH NIGH, [ eengiken (G1448)] - hath and is drawn nigh: a settled state (1 Peter 4:7). We are to live in a continued expectancy of the Lord's coming as always nigh. Nothing can more 'stablish the heart' amidst troubles than His coming realized as at hand....

8_Stablish your hearts_. Lest any should object and say, that the time of deliverance was too long delayed, he obviates this objection and says, that _the Lord was at hand_, or (which is the same thing) that _his coming was drawing nigh_. In the meantime, he bids us to correct the softness of the heart, which weakens us, so as not to persevere in hope. And doubtless the time appears long, because we are too tender and delicate. We ought, then, to gather strength that we may become hardened and this cannot be better attained than by hope, and as it were by a realizing view of the near approach of our Lord....

7-11 Consider him that waits for a crop of corn; and will not you wait for a crown of glory? If you should be called to wait longer than the husbandman, is not there something more worth waiting for? In every sense the coming of the Lord drew nigh, and all his people's losses, hardships, and sufferings, would be repaid. Men count time long, because they measure it by their own lives; but all time is as nothing to God; it is as a moment. To short-lived creatures a few years seem an age; but Scripture, measuring all things by the existence of God, reckons thousands of years but so many days. God brought about things in Job's case, so as plainly to prove that he is very pitiful and of tender mercy. This did not appear during his troubles, but was seen in the event, and believers now will find a happy end to their trials. Let us serve our God, and bear our trials, as those who believe that...

Verse 8. _BE YE ALSO PATIENT_] Wait for God's deliverance, as ye wait for his bounty in providence. _STABLISH YOUR HEARTS_] Take courage; do not sink under your trials. _THE COMING OF THE LORD DRAWETH NIGH._] ηγγικε. _Is at hand_. He is already on his way to destroy this wicked people, to raze their city and temple, and to destroy their polity for ever; and this judgment will soon take place....

BE YE ALSO PATIENT - As the farmer is. In due time, as he expects the return of the rain, so you may anticipate deliverance from your trials. STABLISH YOUR HEARTS - Let your purposes and your faith be firm and unwavering. Do not become weary and fretful; but bear with constancy all that is laid upon you, until the time of your deliverance shall come. FOR THE COMING OF THE LORD DRAWETH NIGH - Compare Revelation 22:10, Revelation 22:12, Revelation 22:20; the notes at 1 Corinthians 15:51.

EXPOSITION JAMES 5:1 DENUNCIATION OF THE RICH FOR (1) GRINDING DOWN THE POOR AND KEEPING BACK THEIR WAGES; (2) LUXURY; (3) MURDER. The whole section resembles nothing so much as an utterance of one of the old Jewish prophets. It might almost be a leaf torn out of the Old Testament. JAMES 5:1 GO TO NOW (see on James 4

BE YE ALSO PATIENT,.... As well as the husbandman, and like him; and wait for the rains and dews of divine grace to fall, and make fruitful, and for the ripe fruit of eternal life; and in the mean while cheerfully and patiently bear all injuries, and oppressions: STABLISH YOUR HEARTS; though the state of the saints is stable, they being fixed in the everlasting love of God, in the covenant of grace, in the hands of Christ, and on the rock of ages; yet their hearts are very unstable, and so are their frames, and the exercise of grace in them, and need establishing, which God's work; which is often done by the means of the word and ordinances; and these the saints should make use of, for the establishing of their hearts: the sense may be, take heart, be of good cheer, do not be dismayed, or faint, or sink under your pressures, but be of good courage, pluck up your spirits, lift up your he...

V. THE COMING OF THE LORD AND THE LIFE OF FAITH CHAPTER 5 _ 1. The oppression by the rich and their coming doom (James 5:1)_ 2. Be patient unto the coming of the Lord (James 5:7) 3. The prayers of faith and the life of faith (James 5:13) James 5:1 The two classes whom James addresses stand out very prominently in this final chapter of his Epistle. The rich oppressors certainly are not believers but the unbelieving rich; they are not addressed as “brethren”; but others are in verse 7 and exhorted to patience. Both classes, the unbelieving rich and the believing remnant are confronted by the coming of the Lord. “Go to

Patience in James 5:7; James 5:10 is different from endurance in n, Hebrews 12:1 f.; it is the opposite of short-temperedness or impatience. The farmer does his work and then can only wait for a harvest which he can do nothing to hurry. The Coming of the Lord is a phrase appropriating to Yahweh and in Christian language to Christ a term almost technical for _royal visits._ (With our new knowledge of the profane use of the word, _mg._ becomes misleading.) The former rain follows the sowing, the latter comes just before the corn ripens. This epistle belongs to the period when all Christians still believed in the imminence of the Advent (contrast 2 Peter 3:4

THE WORTHLESSNESS OF RICHES (James 5:1-3)...