James 4:13-17
THE SAD CASE OF THE BOUNTIFUL BUSINESS MAN
A successful Failure
I. Verse 13-14, Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: {14} Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. An attitude that we should never take - Self Sufficiency.
A. Planned
1. A period of time - a year
2. place - into a certain city
3. procedure - buy and sell (merchant)
4. profit - get gain (earthly profits, not heavenly treasure.
B. The problem is not planning, it's planning without God.
1. Luke 12:13-21 - The parable of a rich man who decided to build larger barns to store his plentiful harvest and then retire.
2. He died that night without God.
3. God called him a fool.
II. An assumption we should not make - that we have tomorrow.
A. Scriptures to show the short time man has upon this earth.
1. Proverbs 27:1, Boast not thyself of to morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.
2. David's prayer to God before Israel shortly before he died. 1 Chronicles 29:15, For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding.
3. Job 7:6, My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and are spent without hope.
4. Psalms 39:4-6 - LORD, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am. {5} Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee: verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity. Selah. {6} Surely every man walketh in a vain shew: surely they are disquieted in vain: he heapeth up riches and knoweth not who shall gather them.
5. Psalms 102:3, For my days are consumed like smoke, and my bones are burned as an hearth.
6. Psalms 102:11, My days are like a shadow that declineth; and I am withered like grass.
7. Psalms 103:15-18 - As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. {16} for the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more. {17} But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear Him, and His righteousness unto children's children, {18} To such as keep His covenant, and to those that remember His commandments to do them
B. James 4:14 - Our life is like a vapor.
1. It is impossible to compare God's length of life to our length of life.
2. God lives without any measuring of time.
3. God made time so we could have a measure of our existence on the earth.
III. It's not wrong to plan.
A. Verse 15, For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.
1. This scripture makes it very plain that it is not a sin to plan our lives.
2. We ought to plan according to three things:
a. If the Lord wills,
b. we shall live,
c. we shall do this or that.
B. Things it's not wrong to plan for:
1. Tomorrow, but remember to pray that the Lord return today.
2. To pay back our debts (for cars, houses, and such). Our debtors probably want us to plan to pay them back!
3. Retirement. But don't plan to retire from God's service.
C. Verse 16, But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil.
1. It is wrong to rejoice in what we can do, and not boast in what God can do for us.
2. To rejoice in what God can and will do for us, when we put forth the effort is not evil.
IV. Verse 17, Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin. Doing good is an activity we should never forsake.
A. The sin of omission: If we know to do good and do it not, it is sin.
B. The sin of commission: If we know a thing is sin and do it anyway.