Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. We were just having a little fun here, saying we should be working to the song, shouldn't we? So you can sing along with a little elevator music. But welcome to our Thursday night Bible study. Glad you're here. We're going to have a good time, I believe, tonight as we gather together and we do a little study in the Word. Our last time in the epistle of James here on our 15th session. And many of you have been with us all along. That's been a blessing and outline available for you at our RWM connect site, which you get to@randywhiteministries.org if you have to sign up for that. And first time you have to sign up for it. But if you have to do so, you fill out a little form. All it needs is your email address to fill that out. And then we'll send you an invitation. Sometimes it takes us a day or so to send that invitation, so watch your email. Sorry about the fact that that's not automated. But anyway, something new on those downloadable outlines. That's the best place to get the outline. Go to files once you're in there. And then the Old Testament. New Testament or topical? Obviously, james's new Testament. And then you got them all right there that you can download anytime, night or day. And now we're adding something new. We started this last night with the Hosea series. Did you join us? And in the Hosea series now, the last session of the James series, we're offering a large print outline for those of you who would like that. And you can just check when you download it, it'll say, well, actually in the future ones, like in Hosea, there are two different folders, either the regular folder or the large print folder. But James, since we only have one there, it's all in the same folder, and it just says large print, and you can print it. Now, large print means you'll be able to see it better, but it also means it's going to take more paper. And so more paper means more ink, all that kind of stuff we provide. You decide. How's that? And we, I think, are going to have a great time tonight looking into the book of James for this last time, 15 sessions together. And then we'll get started putting together a commentary on the book of James. We've got Colossians about ready to come out. We got Philippians that we're working on. We're behind on our commentaries. We got to get with it. Maybe we'll have three or four by year's end, who knows? And this James commentary will be available for you. What happens next after James? I'll tell you what happens next is Roman's, rightly, divided verse by verse that we will begin next week. And I'm looking forward to that. Now. You know I've done Romans before. I've done Romans verse by verse before. Even here, I believe it's a Wednesday night series that we did Romans. And yet I've always felt like as a matter of fact, I did Romans in the last seven years since I've been in Tower on a Wednesday night series. I had done Romans previous to that, even in Katie. And at that point I think I broke it up several times, didn't go all the way through but did several segments and eventually got the whole book. But every time when I finished I thought, I'm not quite there yet, I want to get this. I am determined to know Romans. So we did Romans graphically presented. Those by the way, are available now on Worship I and on YouTube. We did Romans graphically presented. But that was the graphic overview of Romans. Obviously we looked at some of the verses in there, but we only had a weekend and with Romans, what can you do in a weekend? And so we got the overview. Now we're going to take those overview outlines and we're going to come and do Romans rightly divided verse by verse starting next Thursday night. I am looking forward to that. Hey, since you're night folk in watching us, those of you watching live, anyway, let me tell you about some special programming that comes up before we jump into our programming for tonight. I will be out Friday and Monday. I'll be here Sunday, but I got a family obligation tomorrow. My granddaughter looked with really big eyes and said, pops, please take me to the pumpkin patch. So what am I supposed to do? I'm off to the pumpkin patch even though I missed last Friday and Monday, sorry about all that, but granddaughters win. So tomorrow I'm taking my granddaughter down a waves from here and we're going to have a little fun with the carnival kind of atmosphere. And then Monday I've just got several appointments in Santa Fe that I had to take care of. And so that was planned to be out of the office on Monday. So I thought I got to make it up to you. And here's how I'm going to make it up to you. I'm going to make it up to you by a Sunday night broadcast, a special evening edition of Ask the Theologian and we will be doing it at 05:30 p.m.. Earlier today I mentioned it maybe at 05:00 it'll be 05:30 p.m. Mountain Time. That's 730 for those of you on the east and 430 for those of you on the west, 630 for those of you in the middle. How's that? So 530 Mountain time. We're going to do a two hour evening special of Ask the Theologian and I will take your biblical, theological and worldview questions. We'll do the evening edition a little laid back and have some fun with it and dig into some things. Have a little fellowship on Sunday night. So hey, I know many of you can't really join us live for Ask the theologian. But maybe this Sunday night you say, hey, I don't have anything going along on the 15 October. I think I'll do it Sunday night. 530, a special two hour program. Come when you can, leave when you must, how's that sounds. And we'll take your questions and we'll just talk theology for a couple hours. I think that will be fun. And then again next Thursday, romans rightly divided. But let's see, where do we go? There we go. Tonight we come to finish the epistle of James rightly divided. And what a really a joy it has been to walk through this. You know, James obviously is one of the so called Hebraic epistles circumcision officials, jewish epistles, some people would call them general officials. I spoke on this at our conference in Iowa last week. And in that particular conference, one of my assignments was to talk about rightly dividing the Hebraic epistles. And so we spent some time on James. We looked at first John and some of the others, the book of Hebrews, for example. But rightly dividing these Hebraic epistles. Well, in one sense you divide them by putting them aside for our direct application. But by going now and studying James verse by verse, my right division principles are strengthened even because I come to see how utterly important it is to rightly divide. We'll conclude with that statement as well here in just a moment. But let's come into the book of James right here and we are on Bibliphy. I'll show you how to get there in a moment. Bibliphy. And we've got King James version right here. We've got some interlinear in the middle and we've got Young's Literal translation right over here, Bibliphy, created right here by Nathan White. And to get there, you go to Bibliphy worstify.com Bibliphide, Worship.com. Now let me tell you something that you can do once you get there if you happen to be watching right now. Now, this does not work on phones yet. It works on tablets and laptops and desktops and whatnot. But you can go right up here to this little one right there, all the way almost to the right, that's got the little black bar click that brings up this I don't know, what do you call that, Nathan? The toolbar. It brings up the toolbar. That's what it is. Right at the top it says Worship. If you will just click on Worship right there. And then it wants you to enter a name. Well, guess what you can do? You can just come over here and type James. It's going to look for videos. Right there is James 516 through 20. You can go down there. I'm not going to do it. But you can click on James 516 through 20. That's tonight's session. And then it'll ask you if you'd like to sync your screen or just your target window. Your target window is if you click the little target right there, it'll let you sync all three like I'm doing, or just your target if you want to save some for your own use. And that way let me now close that out. That way, when I here we go. Goodbye. There you go. When I move my scripture like this, like now, I'm at verse 17. Your scripture right on your tablet will go there. It's almost like the Pentecostal age. Ask whatever you will and it shall be done to you. Almost. So tonight we start in James, chapter five, verse 16. We are in a section of scripture that is talking about waiting patiently for the kingdom. We started that last time in session 14, looked at some amazing things that as any of you say, let him call for the elders and talks through that. Now he continues with this thought of, hey, here we are, the Jewish people, the twelve tribes. We're waiting patiently for the kingdom. What are we supposed to be doing in the meantime? And he tells us what we're supposed to be doing in the meantime, and that is confess your faults one to another. Now, the way I said that I should be a little careful, I said he tells us what to do while we're waiting, but he's not talking to us. He tells the twelve tribes what to do. Confess your faults one to another and pray for one another that you may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of the factual fervent prayer of a righteous man of veileth much. Now, let's start right here at the beginning. Confess your faults one to another. Let's see here. We'll start with Nancy in Pueblo West. And then we'll go to Shirley in Ridge Crest. And after that it's going to be Neil up in Volcan, Alberta. We're going to allow you to confess your faults right here because that's what it says to do. Who. I think Nancy and Shirley and Neil just said, oh my goodness, I don't know about this. You see, Nancy and Shirley neil, of course, been with us long enough to know that, wait a minute, this is for the twelve tribes of Israel. I don't believe that we in the body of Christ should, nor do we need to build a doctrine of confessing our faults one to another. In fact, I preached a sermon just earlier this year. If you look in the Because You Ask series, the sermon was something like, should we confess our sins? Public confession of sins had to do with a public confession of sins. If you looked at that in worship, you could find out there public confession of sins. Now here he's telling them, confess your faults one to another. And he says, pray for one another that ye may be healed. It is a little difficult, by the way, to determine whether or not this is a package deal. Confess and pray that you may be healed. Or is it confess your faults to one another? And then I also want you to pray for one another that you may be healed. I'm going to go ahead and take them separate now. Confess your faults one to another. First of all, probably Nancy and Shirley and Ed are thinking, okay, well, fortunately, it just says confess your faults, not your sins. Well, I drink too much coffee, I guess. Oh, well, you know, who can blame me? Faults sounds like, I don't know, a little less than a sin. It's just one of your faults. I am convinced that the word that is used here and it's pareptoma, pareptoma. That word is often translated trespasses. Confess your trespasses. It is a different word. If we were to back up to verse 15 here, it is a different word than we've got right here. If where are we here? If 15. Okay, there we go. If any have committed sins, that's the word harmotia, they shall be given for him. Confess your faults. So here you could say, man here they're talking about class A sins, but down here it's just trespasses. It's false. It's the little stuff over here that you're supposed to confess. Not the big stuff, just the little stuff. I honestly think that it would be very difficult to make an argument to say that pareptoma, the faults are materially different from the sins. Here the harmatia. I think that when you look at them, as a matter of fact, in Ephesians, chapter two, verse one, or Colossians, chapter two, verse 13, they're both used in the same verse, really synonymously. So I think this is just a matter of good writing and good speech that you sometimes use synonymous terms rather than using the same word over and over. I don't think there's really any difference here from the sins of verse 15 and the faults of verse 16. The group of people that was waiting for the King to ever remember they were going to be judged when the King came, the Messiah, when he comes, it will be in the Day of judgment, and they will stand before the Lord. They will give judgment whether or not they're going to enter the kingdom or not enter the kingdom. Therefore, they were really living in a time in which, hey, you better get things right. You better get this off, and you better if you have wronged anyone, you better fix it. Now is the time to confess your faults, sins, one to another and pray for another. Interesting. Here one to another. Looking at the Greek there is that appears to be one on one. Confess your false one on one. Not we want Nancy to come forward and confess one to everybody, but rather even here, not for us, but even here it is, hey, one on one, go and confess your fault. Probably. I would say, if you've wronged your brother, as Jesus talked about in the Sermon on the Mount, then leave your gift there at the altar and go, you go get it right with your brother. Kind of the same teaching that is given on the Sermon on the Mount. So confess your fault from one to another. Let me stop right here. You know, in my book Evangelical Garbage, the subtitle is something to do with confusion and manipulation. How evangelicalism is confusing, manipulative, and downright dangerous. Well, manipulative. You can imagine how a pastor could come along and take this and here you are, people who want to know the Bible, who want to obey the Bible, you're people of the book, you say, you know, God said it, that settles it, here I am. And so a preacher could come and manipulate you, as this happened way too many times, I think, manipulate you into coming and standing before a group of people and confessing sins that you shouldn't have ever stood before them and confessed. And the manipulation can come here probably because the preacher himself is confused, doesn't know how to rightly divide. He's probably confused because his parents at the seminary told him, this is what you're supposed to do, James. They said, even though it's written to the twelve tribes of Israel, that means us. That means us in this case because I read that in a book. And therefore that means us. You're put under the manipulation here when you learn to rightly divide your freed from all that manipulation. Amen. So confess your faults to one another. Pray for one another that ye may be healed. Again, I'm going to separate the healing just to go to the prayer here. Pray for one another that ye may be healed. This is the word or the instruction that he gives. Grammar alone doesn't really tell us whether we can separate it or leave them together. And you could really go either way here. But often they do want to put them together. Let me back up and get that full verse of there. Confess your false to one another. Pray for one another that you may be healed. What they usually do here because they know this doesn't really fit us. And so, oh, what are we going to do? This doesn't really fit us. I can't just go out there pray that you may be healed. And this is pray in order that you may be healed. The result of your prayer is healing. So they put it together with confess your fault. Hey, if I link these together then ain't nobody going to do it, so I don't have to worry about it. So I'll really link them together. And to build some kind of biblical basis for this, they go to passages like One Corinthians, chapter eleven, verse 30. For this reason, many of you are weak and sick and some are asleep, some have died. To paraphrase One Corinthians 1130, and they'll say, Ah, see the sickness here comes because they are holding a fault against their brother. And so I'll bring in the Sermon on the Mount, and I'll bring in the nasty way you treated me last summer and all these kind of other things I'll bring in. And that's what you got to get right? That's what's making you sick. It's a sin sickness that has brought itself out in, I don't know, some sort of psychosomatic kind of illness here. And so if you'll confess and then you'll come together and pray together with your brethren, you're going to get that off your chest and then healing is going to come. I want to take this more literally than that, that he's saying, hey, the judge is coming and he's going to examine us. Maybe we ought to just open ourselves to examination by others first as a preparation for the judgment, and then we want to endure to the end so that we can be saved. Why don't we pray for one another that they may be healed? And obviously you talked about healing and you can go back to session 14 for more of the healing that is in there. And then he says something very interesting, and this is a phrase that we know very well. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Now, I will take that as a doctrinal statement, but not for us. It's a doctrinal statement for the twelve tribes of Israel. It's a doctrinal statement for those who are under the ministry of James. And we could even argue the apostleship of James. And so here's this doctrinal truth that he's giving them. I mean, it's written just as a doctrinal truth, isn't it? The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availth much. Now, in my young days as a pastor, of course I wanted to be a righteous man, did everything I could do to live as a righteous man. And I wanted to have effectual fervent prayers. What is an effectual fervent prayer? And let me say, because I didn't know how to rightly divide that, I sort of went on a wild goose chase trying to find the formula for an effectual fervent prayer. What is an effectual fervent prayer? I suppose it would be fun some time to go. Maybe if we just plopped ourselves down in the middle of an evangelical church in a Bible study class or something and they were studying James, if we just said, you know, people, friends, brothers, sisters, here it says, the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man available as much. But what is an effectual fervent prayer just to listen to their answers, listen to the things they make up. Oh, it's when you really, really mean it. It's when you say, cross my fingers, hope to die. You got to be on your knees. Some people would say you got to speak in tongues. You got to pray in a private prayer language. You got to sweat a little bit, you gotta cry a little bit. If you're not crying, it's not an effectual fervent prayer. What is an effectual fervent prayer? Well, fortunately, I think we can do a little bit of homework and answer the question. You know, something that's interesting here is effectual fervent is one word in Greek, effectual fervent. Let's see here if we can find it right here, effectual fervent. I know that's kind of small print there. Pardon there. I should enlarge it. But it's this one word right here. It is innergale. Innergale. You've heard the word before. We've used the word before on this effectual fervent prayer. So one word, inner gale. Now, the word happens to be a verb, not a noun. Or in this case, we would probably read this as an adjective, the prayer. What kind of prayer? An effectual prayer. What kind of prayer? A fervent prayer. As a matter of fact, if I had been a recent graduate of Southwestern Seminary in Fort Worth and gone out to preach, they assigned me James, chapter five, verse verse 16, and I was to preach about prayer. I would say, now the instruction from the Word of God is that we're to pray. But how are we to pray? Well, number one, we are to have effectual prayers. Number two, we're to have fervent prayers. And on each one of those I would give some example, some explanation, illustration, an application of an effectual prayer and a fervent prayer. I suspect by the end of my sermon, you would either be sitting there saying, well, you all would be sitting there saying, that young man doesn't know what he's talking about. But the rest of them would be sitting there either saying, well, yeah, I can see how that doesn't describe my prayers. And I guess I need to try that. Others would catch on and say, you know what? I'm not sure that any prayer would be effectual inferment if that's everything that you got to have. I've got this now checklist for praying, a grocery list that I've got to make sure I include every time I bow my head to prayer. Pray to make sure it's an effectual. Affirmative prayer. Well, again, the word is inner gayo. It is a verb. It is a participle. And a participle usually is ing. And a participle is happening right now. It's a present participle. And so the inner gayo, it's an energy word. It goes out and it does something. So literally, what it's saying is, if I can put it this way, the energized prayer. But that's using it as an adjective. I don't want to use this as an adjective. I want it as a verb. So the prayer that is being energized, just using the word intergale, the prayer that has been energized of a righteous man avail as much. Now you say, well, okay, innergale energized is that, as we like to say around here, an etymological error. That you're just taking the etymology of the English word energy, taking it out of its root word innergao and pretending like innergale actually means that. Well, in this case, innergao does happen to mean that, especially in the verb form, it is to be energized. So if we can put it this way, the energized prayer of a righteous man avail as much. Now, what is this prayer that is energized, this prayer that has been energized? I want to say, could it be that this prayer of a righteous man is one that has Holy Ghost power upon it, the Holy Ghost energizes it and let's go on from there. Could this be a reference to the manifestations of the Spirit, the energy of the Spirit that was given in that let's call it the Pentecostal Error era, the Pentecostal era, during the Pentecostal time, the Pentecostal days, the Pentecostal era, the Holy Ghost was coming down and manifesting himself through powers. So could this be that it's saying, hey, the Pentecostal power kind of prayer of a righteous man availth much? Now, if that's the case, then let me ask you a question. Let me ask you a different question. If that's not the case, then what is it? What is an effectual fervent prayer? I'm not going to take the argument again. It's when we weep and cry and wail and talk loud and we say amen instead of Amen, and we don't forget to say in Jesus name. And we do it holding hands, and we lift those holy hands to the Lord. Oh, it's effectual it's fervent? No, that's just loud. Loud and sweaty is all that is. So what is an effectual fervent prayer if it's not a prayer energized by God through the Holy Ghost? The manifestation of Holy Ghost power is upon that prayer. Remember, for example, in the Pentecostal era when they had a prayer meeting and the walls shook? Have you ever been to a prayer meeting like that? I don't think so. Well, I don't know. Our walls shook not too long ago, but we weren't in there praying. Were you in there praying that night, Madison? I'm not sure. No. Okay. She's not going to take credit. Yeah. You know, we haven't been to that kind of prayer meeting. Why not? Because we don't live in the Pentecostal era, that's why not. In that day, the Holy Spirit, again was manifesting himself in energies, in powers, in dynamism, in miracles, all these manifestations of the Spirit. So can I interpret this to say the Pentecostally energized prayer of a righteous man avail as much? Now, someone might say, no, you can't do that. It's not the Pentecostally energized prayer again. My point is okay, what is it? Give me a better option. You got to come up with something. You can't just reject that one if you don't have some good options. So as for me, and we make assumptions around here, but then we question those assumptions, right? So here we come along and we take the assumption this is the Pentecostally energized prayer so then when was the Pentecostal era? What was a Jewish era from the day of Pentecost until let me pull up my poster right here. From this point in the book of Acts, Acts chapter two, and it was diminishing. I always keep thinking I need to make that line go down instead of up. But it was diminishing. It was getting narrow, it was dying out until you get to the point of about act 70 Ad. And then the Pentecostal era was completely done. I think we would argue before that Paul had pentecostal power in the beginning, he didn't have pentecostal power in the end. I don't know what just happened there, Nathan, but I'll let you figure that out. And so what is the there? You figured it out just by walking across the room, you figured it out. So pentecostal power, ladies and gentlemen, he's got it now. The early books of Acts filled with pentecostal power, but it was diminishing almost to nothing after Acts chapter 15. Not completely, but almost to nothing after Acts chapter 15. A little bit of it there. And really, by the time you get to Timothy's or Paul's letter to Timothy, there's no pentecostal power there. So if this effectual fervent prayer, this energeto prayer is a prayer energized with pentecostal power, then this will be shocking to some, then that doesn't happen anymore. Do you realize the implications of that interpretation? The interpretation is you and I can't have an effectual fervent prayer. We can be a righteous man through positionally, righteous in Christ or righteous in our behavior, but there's not the pentecostal manifestations. Now, again, that is very offensive to many. I'll say offensive and in fact, if not most, because most take a continuationist, I should say continuationist view of the work of the Holy Spirit. I remember a thousand times growing up, back in the days when you sang hymns. You know, I guess we still sing hymns, our church, but not many do. But I remember growing up, and you do too, you know, Lord, send the old time power, the pentecostal power that sinners be converted and thy name glorify. Okay? Asking the Lord to send that pentecostal power, or if you are good, badness, that pentecostal power. There we go. Okay, but that was a prayer. A prayer and a song that was adopted by most evangelicals back in the day, certainly fundamentalists again back in the day. And yet if you're a really good dispensational right divider, you would say, wait a minute, the pentecostal power is not for us. Why would we be praying, lord, send the pentecostal power. These are not the days of old. We're in a new day, and that's not ours. So a very few, and I hope I've convinced you very few would agree with me on this interpretation. You don't have to. We can still be friends. I'll convince you another day. But I believe that it's a wild goose chase. To try to figure out what is an effectual fervent prayer. There may be prayer that avail as much today. I'm not saying that there's not, I'm not saying don't pray, but I'm saying that this particular passage and even the context is not to us. I think it's talking about a Pentecostal era that was valid in James, chapter five, and is not there today. So the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. And then in verse 17, he gives an illustration. That illustration said elias was a man subject to like passions like we are now. Probably in English, most of us would say Elias. In Greek it would probably be more like Alias. And that would be true for James the Jew speaking in Greek, he would have said Alias as well. But elias. Elias. We know it's. Elijah. It's the Greek spelling of Elijah. And he's speaking about the prophet here, as is very clear by the context, the Hebrew word Elijah, the Hebrew name Elijah, actually doesn't show up anywhere in the New Testament. It's always Elias or Elias. But it's Elijah. So Elios was a man subject to like passions as we are just a fellow like us. And he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it rained not on the earth for the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruits. So this little illustration, verses 17 and 18, give just an illustration of the effective forever righteous man available as much. Now you might be saying, hey, wait a minute, that baldheaded preacher from Tao said this was Pentecostal power. The effective prayer of the effective fervent prayer of a righteous man. Is that Pentecostal kind of prayer. And yet the example is Elijah. Well, Elijah didn't live in the Pentecostal era, so how could it be? Well, actually, he didn't live in the Pentecostal era. You're exactly right. But he did have prophetic power. And here's an example of the prophetic power upon the prayer of Elijah that energized that prayer. It was energized prophetically. Now, I would contend, and I think we could build the argument and convince the ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I would contend that what Pentecostal power is, is prophetic power spread about to everyone in the believing community. And so if you don't want to call it Pentecostal power, verse 16, then in verse 17 you say no, it's prophetic power. Okay, call them both prophetic power because the Pentecostal era was a time of prophetic power. Your young men will dream dreams, your old men will see visions, you remember. It's prophetic power that was to come upon everyone. And so in the Pentecostal days, every man hath a manifestation of the spirit. Paul said in one corinthians, I believe it's chapter eleven. And so here's the example here of this energized prayer of Elijah. If we could call Elijah in for a little interview tonight, I suspect we could say, hey, Elijah, did that always happen every time you prayed? Oh, no. A few times it happened like when I called fire down from heaven and when I prayed that it might not rain. But both of those times, man, there was a prophetic energy that was given to that prayer. Now, if I'm right that you've got a prophetic energy or a Pentecostal energy that's required in 1617 and 18, and if I'm right that I'm a cessationist, not a continuationist, that is, I say prophetic energy or pentecostal energy does not continue to manifest itself today in the body of Christ, then there's no other conclusion than verse 16. And then verse the illustration, verses 17 and 18 do not directly apply to us. And every single sermon, commentary, book seminar that tries to take the prayer of James, chapter five, verse 16, the Pentecostally empowered prayer or prophetically empowered prayer, energized prayer and apply that to us is going to send us again, as I said earlier, on a wild goose chase. We're just never going to get there. I suspect that some of you have been on that goose chase before and you find out, hey, I can't ever get there. So they're 17 and 18. We come in to the last two verses of the book in 19 and 20, and they also are just packed with some very interesting things that are given. As he says, these are two verses that go together. You can't really separate them, as is done by the versification. It says, Brethren, if any of you do heir from the truth, and one convert him. So that's obviously not the end of the thought. You got to keep going. Err from the truth and one convert him. Let him know that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his ways shall save a soul from death and shall hide a multitude of sins. Now, we'll probably focus mostly on verse 20 here, but let's think about this from beginning to the end. These are the last two verses. So from the beginning to the end, james belongs in the Jewish era. I kind of want to sneeze, but I think I scared it away. There we go. James belongs in the Jewish era. If you've been with us on the journey, you know that from the very first verse to the twelve tribes sounds Jewish to me. Scattered abroad, the Diaspora, the twelve tribes, okay, from the beginning to the end, it belongs in the Jewish era. You and I don't live in the Jewish era. So we shouldn't take the Book of James and put it unto ourselves. Now. So here a person comes along. Let's just take the plain sense of this verse. Someone comes along and they do air from the truth. Air is the word planet right there. It means to wander. They wander from the truth. In fact, we get the word planets from it because those were the stars that kept wandering around in the sky. So the planet, if any one of you planet, if any one of you airs, if any of you wanders off from the truth and one convert him, the word convert here, epistropho, it is to turn him around. So somebody's out there, they're walking away from the truth, and somebody else says, no, no, no, you can't go over there. That's dangerous over there. Don't do that. Goes over there, convinces them, turns them, drags them, whatever it is, gets them to come to the truth. What happens? Well, he which converteth the sinner from the era of his way shall save a soul from death, and he shall hide a multitude of sins again. What's the plain sense of that? Well, the plain sense is, i, Randy, the great pastor, I see one of you beginning to stray from the truth. I go out there, I say, shame, shame, shame on you. Thou shalt not I convince you, you weep, you wail, you come back. I have saved a soul from death. Wait. Now, what we want to say is, oh, that means he was going to go out there and his sin was going to eventually, it was going to kill him. That's what sin does. It kills. You talking about fizz. I mean, he was already saved because he was a brother straying from the truth. He saved once saved, always saved. But you look at this and it says he will save a soul from death. Any other place in the Bible, if we talked about the salvation of your soul, would we be talking about physical death or would we be talking about spiritual death? I think we'd be talking about eternal death again. If I went to a revival and they said, we want you to preach on the salvation of the soul, well, I wouldn't be preaching about healthy living, how you can take some vitamin C and feel better. I'd be preaching on the gospel. And yet here all the commentaries say, no, this is not the Gospel, because they don't want to take the plain sense of it. The plain sense say, you convert this guy, you saved inner from the air of his ways. You will save a soul from death and hide a multitude of sins. This appears like it's talking about my sins. I go out and do some conversions, get people back. I will say there's some death, and I will cover a multitude of my sins. This sounds like a pretty good bargain. This is the payment for doing the work of conversion, is I'm, a sense covered that's against our doctrine that we insist it doesn't say what it pretty plainly says. Is that really under what stretch of the imagination does do verses 16 and what is it versus 19 and 20? Yeah, versus 19 and 20. Under what stretch of the imagination do they fit in our dispensation? They don't fit. So what do we do with it? I think what we have to do is we have to begin to take it and put it aside and make it again not mean what it means. Here, let me jump in the outline I've got right here from beginning to end, james is the book that belongs to the Jewish era. What wild terminological? I want to get that right. That's why I wanted to read it. What wild terminological inexactitudes. That's pretty good, wasn't it? Terminological inexactitudes. I use that term because I learned it this week and I wanted to put it down on paper. Terminological inexactitudes. You know what that is? It's a lie. You're using terminology that is inexact came from Winston Churchill way back, very early part of his career. So preachers come up with these terminological inexactitudes in sharing and you got to get so wild to make 19 and 20 fit our dispensation. And basically you have to make 920, 19 and 20 say. And to do that you're going to have to use some terminological inexactitudes. There's a number of ways you can do that. One is you can just talk a long time. If you talk a long time and use some big flowery words in there, it helps a little bit. And you have a few cross references that are kind of unrelated and you just keep going and going and going and going and going and going. Enough people will forget about it that they'll go home saying, man, that preacher really knows his stuff, doesn't he? I have no clue what he said, but boy, he really knows it. You can't take this literally and apply it to our dispensation. So what do they do from the get in the book of James? They say we don't take James literally. They don't use those words. They use terminological inexitudes. They say, well, obviously here the twelve tribes means those who believe in Jesus as we do. It means the body of Christ, obviously very clear. And yet it says the twelve tribes and gives zero evidence that it's not to the twelve tribes. If you take James to the twelve tribes, you can come here and say ah, in this heir to the age of Grace and they're awaiting the kingdom, they're doing all the things that they've looked at. And here's a brother who's airing from the truth and you bring him back, you probably have saved his soul from death. The judge is about to come and if he is out there wandering away from the truth, when the judge comes back, he's going to die. His soul is going to die. He's going to be damned. You go and get him and bring him back to the truth and he's in the truth wheniah comes you saved his soul from death and shall hide a multitude of sins. In the Old Testament era, prior to the dispensation of the grace of God, there really was kind of a balance, wasn't it? Got way too many sins. I got to do some righteous deeds, do some righteous acts, cover this up. It fits perfectly with the Torah. It fits perfectly, I would even say with the Sermon on the Mount. It fits perfectly with the circumcision. It fits perfectly like all of James does. If you take James, chapter one, verse one, literally and you go down and bring it, but they just don't want to go there. Here's an example. The new American commentary, the sub averse commentary says this the converting of a sinner in no sense supplies some kind of compensatory see you big words in a notion supplies come some kind of compensatory merit for one or mental in the conversion. Nor is the amended life the basis of one's willingness, one's withstanding the judgment of the Lord. Think about that again. I've got that up here, and I think I can bring this a little bigger for us here. And let's just see if we can show that. Here's the printed version of and let's go down right here. Okay, there it is. Trying to get it big enough where you can see and not come off the screen. Okay, here we go again. So the converting of a sinner, that's what the verse is talking about, in no sense supplies some kind of compensatory merit for the one who is instrumental in the conversion. In no sense there's a supply, some type of compensatory merit heaved converteth the sinner from the errors of what will save a soul from death and shall hide a multitude of sins. No compensatory merit at all. No sense does that say what that says going on. Nor is the amended life the basis of one's wisding the judgment of the Lord converts the sinner from the air of his ways, shall save his soul from but it's not the conversion of the sinner from the Arab, it'll save a soul from death. Don't be that, because that would only fit for the Jewish dispensation. And I already applied this to us. That's what the Southern Baptist say, and all the others along with it. So as you can see here, we've really got a problem finding the screen. There we go. We really got an issue here in which why not just take the Book of James and rightly divide it? I think that's exactly what we ought to do, is rightly divide the Book of James and saying it's a hybric epistle. How do I know it's a hebrik epistle? Because it says right at the beginning, verse one, and I'll take it that way. Now, let's go. I could just talk here a little bit, but I want to read. How's that? I want to read. I've said here is important enough to make sure we get the verbiage right here and make sure I don't have any terminological inexactitudes in this. In my concluding stuff on the letter of James having now studied the epistle of James verse by verse, from beginning to end, I am ever that rightly dividing the word of truth is the answer to every single problem that has been brought forth concerning the epistle's contradictions with Paul. We stop right there. Every single commentary you pick up will say there's a supposed contradiction between what James teaches and what Paul. Just a seeming contradiction. It's not really there. Well, then they try to undo the contradiction that's there. I think that every single problem that comes forth concerning these contradictions is solved by rightly dividing. You say Paul's talking about the age of grace, james talking about the Jewish age. Let's go on. The means of overcoming the real issues is simply to divide James into the Jewish sensation and Paul into that which follows. Such division, of course, is also clearly taught by Paul himself in Ephesians three and elsewhere. Now, let me continue on. Sadly, I am more convinced than ever that the standard fare of Christendom, whether from Catholic, Reformed, evangelical and dispensationalism, is simply so filled with the errors of wrong division that it is practically worth for Christian growth and understanding. That's a huge statement, right? What I said is standard fair of Christendom, catholic standard fair. Reform standard fair, evangelical standard fairationalism, standard fair. It's got so much wrong division that honestly, it's practically worthless. Some of you come to others, especially if this is your time, hearing me tonight, you're saying, my goodness, isn't this guy full of himself? He just threw all of Christendom under the bus. Yeah, I did. I did. I think it's so much garbage. Even we saw last week, if you go back to session 14, the classic dispensational commentary, the Bible nonmetery talking about how sick people who are supposed to get some oil upon them, how they were just worn and weary and they needed someone to massage their head, that's the garbage put forth in there. It's the point, I don't mind saying, don't pay for that stuff anymore. Don't support that stuff anymore. Don't waste your time with that stuff. There's so much wrong division in it that they honestly can't even see it. Let me continue on as we there is consistent, literal interpretation in favor of the allegorical. They would all deny that. But just look what it says. It says, don't take this literally, just like the example we just gave. They do this not because it's merited by context, because there are times when contest is allegory. We just started Jose last night. We saw some allegories, some symbolism in there. But it's not because in James the text is the allegorical interpretation is merited by context, but because a literal interpretation does not thin their preconceived notions. As for me, I prefer to follow the instruction of right division and leave my notion behind. These notions were most often built upon evangelical groupthink in the first place, parented by respected church leaders. So many times that they became accepted as truth, but containing little again, strong words. Definitely. And I close with this. I suppose a few of those who have followed this study will be convinced. Now I'm talking about people who weren't already convinced in the first place, and they followed through now, 15 sessions of the Book of James and they say, you know what, I haven't found any flaw in what he said for 15 sessions. I don't like a guy, but I haven't found any flaw. Yeah, he's right. Who will be convinced? For there are always some open to plain logic, and I'm convinced there are. Yet I know that most especially of those of the Socalled clergy will reject the ideas. It seems that those most responsible for interpreting the scriptures are most fearful of doing so, if doing so would literally jeopardize their comfort or their careers. There's a lot of preachers out there who ultimately say, man, what we're doing doesn't work with the Book of James. But I can't go out there and preach that. They'd fire me, I've done. I'd never get another speaking engagement again. I wouldn't sell $4 in a month. How in the world could I do it? And so for their comfort and their career, they're not going to go there. I, along with those who accept the method we call right division, will be sidelined and perhaps called heretical for our views. But may we take this with grace, praying that Christians will come to a greater love for the truth than its current love, for its doctrinal statements and positions about it. And yet, as I come to names, having rightly divided it, I have to say I don't see anything out there in Christendom on the Book of James. And most others that are looking at worth reading to, worth listening to, is just all bankrupt because it doesn't do any right division. And really all right division is is reading the Bible and taking it literally in historical context right there for what it says james is written in the Pauline dispensation or the dispensation of the grace of which was kept secret in the time of James. It wasn't revealed. He doesn't know it. It fits like a hand and a glove. For that dispensation, it will cause fits with the next dispensation, which is the one you and I live in. And so what do we come with? We come up with in the end an understanding that we have been led astray on James. I've taught the Book of James before. You say I've taught the Book of James before and I didn't do it right. They're out there somewhere on the Internet. If you want to laugh a little bit about or see how much I've changed, how much I've grown, I hope in the Lord through that I appreciate very much you being here for these sessions on James. I would love to say hello. And if you haven't already put a chat in. Go ahead, just tell me what town you're from. And that would be a blessing to check out. Let me just remind you also, next Thursday night we start Romans Rightly Divided. And I would be thrilled if you next Thursday night excuse me. I would be thrilled next Thursday night if you would join us for session one of Romans Rightly Divided. And we will enjoy that journey and I think really learn some great things in the book of Romans as we begin to do all of that. And then let me also give an invitation to Sunday night special programming. Sunday. I've got our Hermeneutics class at 945. I've got the Life and Times of Abraham at 1045. But at 05:30 P.m., we will have a special two hour Sunday night edition of Ask the Theologian. And in that I'll take your biblical theological view questions. You can put them even if you put them in the chat box right now, they'll sit there till Sunday night. Or you can go to Ask thetheologian.com and there's an Ask a Question button right there that you can use. You can submit that right now or Friday or Saturday, anytime, it'll be there, be waiting for me. Or you can just get on Sunday night again, 05:30 p.m. Mountain Time and put it in the chat box when that opens up. So, three ways to do it. One, if you're watching live, put it in the chat box right here. Let me say, by the way, for those of you on YouTube, the live chat in comments. So if you're not watching it live, don't put it in the comments section. I'm likely not to see it. If you are watching live right now, go ahead. You can stick it in out. Even better, go to Ask the Theologian.com, use the Ask button and submit your question. It will be there and we'll have some fun Sunday night. I'm looking forward to that and excited about that. Yeah, jim says on Sunday, Jeff touched on pastors worrying about losing their job for preaching the truth. I haven't gone back and listened. I am sure my friend Pastor Jeff did an excellent job and knows about that kind of stuff. And, yeah, you preach the truth and it doesn't work out well, I don't know what the problem is there, but the chat, nathan says buffering problem or something along the way that he'll look into. Okay, let me say before you leave here, like hello in Piedmont, South Carolina, god bless you. We're in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Hope you're doing well. Lorna. Especially Dr. Mike. Good to see you. Darrell and Crystal Springs, Mississippi. Good evening to you and Roger out in Fresno, California. Glad that you are here. Roger has a Sunday night Bible study home, so he probably will not be with us live at, what would it be? 40 p. M. Pacific Time, Alberta, Canada winter is starting to come in up there. I imagine. Good to see you. Sholo, Arizona. Glad to see you. Brother Ever, thanks for being here. Maryland and Roger in Wabasha, Minnesota. Thank you for always being here. There's debbie in Crystal Springs. All Mississippi. Thanks for being here. Bev and John up in Croix County, Wisconsin. Roberts, Wisconsin, specifically. Thanks. Darlene and Chula Vista. Glad you're here. Good to see you tonight. Thank you very much. Darlene and her four cats are with us tonight. Auburn, Kentucky. The hall family. Your blessing. Always good to see you. And we've got you're also out in Fresno. Good to see you. Rodney right into Memphis, tennessee. Ohio. Hope you're doing well. Eric's. Had some prayer issues here lately. Good to see you, Eric. Nancy got the whole thing tonight. Glad everyone's there. Nancy and Ed and Lisa and Forrest the dog. Thanks for being here. And we got rich and debbie in POCA, west virginia, with the polka dots. Always good to see you. See you in Texas. Thanks. Urban. Sherry, great for you to be here. Just home from the phone. You to pray for her. So glad you're getting good reports and doing well with your cancer. Shirley in Ridgecrest, California. No need to confess all the sins. Shirley, thanks for being here. Out in Ridgecrest. Lexington, Kentucky. Linda always with us, has been for many years. Thanks. Wet omens next week. Thanks, Chuck. I appreciate it. Glad you have joined us. Edith in the Ozarks of Missouri. Always good to see you. Oh, thanks, Shirley. She says grandkids are important. If you miss that. The reason I'll be out tomorrow is because my granddaughter wants Pops to, you know, go with her. And it's a two hour drive where we're going. So out for a little fun. So having some fun with that. But we'll make it up Sunday night. Don't forget. Lisa. Darrell and Lisa, good to see you. They went out to Iowa with us. It was so good to see you. Darrell and Lisa from Mount Ridge, Kansas. And Scott came in late, but that's okay. Scott, good to see you. From the Hill Country, Texas. God bless Jeff. There he is. In Trinidad, Colorado. Thanks for joining with us and thanks for preaching for me last Sunday. I certainly appreciate it. And I've heard lots of good comments about that. Y'all can go back on worship or YouTube and catch the Jeff Crossing sermon as my fill in preacher, and I appreciate that. Cliff up in Ontario, good to see you. He's a little late, too, but the James party's not over yet, as he says. And western Oklahoma. Glad you're here. I never, ever shake brothers and sisters over here in the balcony at the cyber sanctuary. I go over to the front cyber bu on worship I'm and wish we were together for that comment there. Yeah, it looked like there were some buffering issues. Did that get taken care of there or do we know? He says on our end. Sorry about that if I'm jumping around a little bit. Sharon from Minnesota. Russell Sharon. They also were in Iowa with us and a blessing to see you. Glad you're here. Randy. Good to you. Down in Corsacana, Texas. Fruit capital of the world. Thanks for joining us this evening. And I think that I think that got us and oh, Dr. Mike. Thanks. The large print outline makes reading much easier for us old folks. You two are the only old folks we've got in our ministry. There are no others. The rest of us are just spring chickens. Glad you like I forgot who one. Let's see it'll. Come to me as soon as I say goodbye. That we got a request on that. And ask and you shall receive sometimes. That was an easy one. So we've we did it. Well, again, thanks for being here. I won't be on tomorrow. Friday.