James IDs himself with tribulation saints

“If you took a tribulation Jew who knows his Bible and you said to him something about, ‘The trying of your faith worketh patience,’ he would think of Abraham. If you said to him, ‘If any man lacks wisdom let him ask God and it will be given to him,’ he would think of Solomon.

“The references in the Book of James, if you look in chapter 2:21, there’s Abraham and Isaac. Verse 25 has Rahab. In chapter 5:11 is Job and in chapter 5:17 is Elijah. You have Old Testament saints as examples brought up over and over.

“What you have in James is a study of the Old Testament, studying the examples that fit in for a Jew over in the tribulation, laying out in the demonstration of the lives of these patriarchs and others back there in exactly the situation these people are going to be in over there.

“The book is going to wind up being a real encouragement to them and an enlightening process to them and the trying of their faith. Their faith is going to be founded in the truth of what God’s Word says and their faith is going to be tried.

“They go through trials, temptations and difficulties to see if their faith is going to stick with what God says in spite of the obstacles and in spite of the difficulties.

“It’s going to be just like in Hebrews 11, all those different things He pointed to saying, ‘Look, faith overcomes in spite of all these various things that are thrown at you,’ and James is going to go on with that.

“When James begins, he identifies himself with the 12 tribes, not only of Israel in the Book of Acts, but of Israel in the tribulation period.

“James doesn’t call himself an apostle. He’s not one of the 12. Evidently this is the James who was the Lord’s brother, who’s an apostle in the secondary sense. In fact, he was a pastor of a church in Jerusalem; a leading elder there.

“He identifies himself as a servant of God and a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now that’s a special title to a tribulation saint.

“Revelation 7: [1] And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.
[2] And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea,
[3] Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.

[4] And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel.

“Go down through verses 4-8 and you see 12,000 out of each of the 12 tribes of the children of Israel. In other words, the servants of God in Revelation 7:3-4 are associated with the 144,000 (12,000 members out of the 12 tribes).

“James, when he starts the book, identifies himself in such a way as to specifically identify himself with the tribulation saints over there and with the 12 tribes in the tribulation. He’s writing to those people.

“He does this so these tribulation saints see, ‘Hey, this is OUR mail; this book is about us.’ It’s written to the nation with the 'little flock' in view. The specific people he’s addressing, and when he gets personal, he’s talking about the 'little flock.'

“Here’s an example in chapter 1:18: [18] Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

“Chapter 2:1: [1] My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons.

“Verse 2:7: [7] Do not they blaspheme that worthy name by the which ye are called?

“When he talks about them being scattered abroad, that’s a tremendously important description because it talks about where Israel is. The condition of Israel when James is written is the same as what the condition of Israel will be in the tribulation period, and that has to do with being scattered.

“Acts 8:1 [1] And Saul was consenting unto his death. And at that time there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judaea and Samaria, except the apostles.

“At that time, there were only 12 believers left in Jerusalem. All the myriads of thousands (30-40,000 there minimum and some estimates run up to 100,000) you have all those people because of the persecution of the unbelieving Israelite and the persecution that was laid upon these people—they’re scattered. Persecution scatters the little flock.

“Chapter 11:19: [19] Now they which were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen travelled as far as Phenice, and Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to none but unto the Jews only.

“They’re out of Judea now. They get scattered abroad and finally they go further and further and further. In fact, in Acts 10 Peter was in Joppa; he’s even left Jerusalem at the time and so were other apostles and so forth.

“In the Acts period, when James is writing the book, he’s writing to Israel in a scattered condition, but that’s exactly the condition they will be in in the tribulation period.”

(new article tomorrow)