RESCUE THE WANDERER!
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on October 23, 2024 under AM Bible Study |
AM Bible Study Group: October 23, 2024 from James 5:19-20
Theme: We have a duty before God to lovingly turn a wandering brother or sister back to the truth.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
I’m not an experienced hiker. But I married someone who has had much more experience than me. And she repeatedly tells me that one of the most important rules of hiking safety is that—as much as possible—a hiker must stay on established paths, carefully follow the directional markers, and not deviate from the trial. On any scenic trail in the wilderness, there will be lots of interesting sights that could tempt a hiker off the path of safety. But anytime someone wanders from the established path, they put themselves in danger of becoming lost or of suffering a dangerous fall. So, there have been many times when we’ve gone on family hikes together when my wife has seen one of us stray a little; and she called out, “Stay on the trail.”
Pastor James would have absolutely agreed with that fundamental rule. In fact, he would have stressed it as a rule that would be even more important to follow when it comes to the truth of the Christian faith. In the closing verses of his wonderful New Testament letter, Pastor James wrote;
Brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins (James 5:19-20).
What a fitting way to close this book—the greatest and most practical Christian counseling manual ever written! The simple message of these final words is that we have a solemn duty toward one another in the family of Christ. Whenever we see anyone among us wandering from the truth of the faith—setting their feet on a slippery slope away from the clear message of God’s word, and putting themselves at risk of sliding downward into sin—James lets us know that when we rescue such a wanderer, we bring about a tremendous amount of good.
It’s not easy to shout out strongly to one another, ‘Stay on the path’! But as James shows us, we have a duty before God to lovingly turn a wandering brother or sister back to the truth.
* * * * * * * * * *
Now; James exercised considerable pastoral authority in the things he said throughout this letter. But it’s interesting that, at the close of the letter, James wasn’t content to be the only one working toward the ‘good’ of the people of God. In these closing words, he urged his readers—who were connected to one another as ‘brothers and sisters’ in Christ—to take all that they have learned from him in this letter and work toward one another’s good.
We can see this clearly in the way he began this final exhortation. He introduced the topic with the word “brethren …”; writing, “Brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back …” “Brethren” was his favorite way of describing his fellow Christians. He himself was one of the ‘brethren’ along with them. In fact, he uses that name for his readers 15 times in this short letter. And so, both the ‘wanderer’ and the ‘rescuer’ in this passage are seen as being members of the family of God together. In a similar passage, the apostle Paul wrote;
Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ (Galatians 6:1-2).
The ‘law of Christ’ that is to be fulfilled is His command that we love one another. This final word of instruction from James, then, is very much a ‘family concern’.
With that in mind, let’s consider the three things that this passage tells us: (1) the dangerous situation, (2) our solemn duty, and (3) the joyful result. First, consider …
1. THE DANGEROUS SITUATION (v. 19a).
In verse 19, James wrote, “Brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth …” Given that the context of this instruction is viewed as among ‘brethren’, then this is talking about those within the church family who ‘wander’ from the established pathway of truth. The word that James uses in the original language is planaō, and it means ‘to go astray’ or ‘to wander about’—that is, to deviate from the right path. And the implication of this word is that they were on the right path at first; but that they then somehow strayed off the path—just like a hiker who is drawn away by some attractive sight and steps off the path and onto a dangerous slippery slope.
Notice too that, in describing what the wanderer strays from, he uses the definite article. He speaks of someone who wanders from ‘the truth‘. He doesn’t speak as if there are many different truths, or as if there’s a general sort of average and adaptable range of truth, but rather—quite singularly and specifically—the truth. He already spoke of this singular ‘truth’—and of how important it is to stay in a right relationship with it—when he wrote in 1:16-18;
Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures (James 1:16-18).
Many people who hold to the relativistic values and principles of our day would consider James’ words to be too harsh and narrow-minded. They would cynically ask, like Pilate did, “What is truth?” But James really hasn’t left us in the dark at all concerning his meaning. The truth that James spoke of is objective. It’s “the word of truth”. It’s the gospel message of God’s grace through the sacrifice of His Son on the cross—the message that was written down and is ‘preached’; and that, by believing, we are caused to be “brought forth” and born again.
But it’s important to understand that faithfulness to ‘the truth’ doesn’t involve only our intellectual agreement with it. It’s also something that concerns our behavior. We agree with it not only by intellectual consent but also by practical obedience. As James said in 3:13-14;
Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth (James 3:13-14).
Remaining on the pathway of ‘the truth’ involves not only ‘believing’ the truth, but also ‘behaving in accord with’ the truth. The truth that James spoke of was not a subjective thing but rather something that could be objectively declared (John 18:37); objectively loved and received (2 Thessalonians 2:10); objectively obeyed (Galatians 5:7); objectively manifested (2 Corinthians 4:2); objectively practiced (John 3:21); and objectively assured of (1 John 3:18-19). Something so ‘objective’, then, is something that someone can be ‘in’ and yet actually ‘stray from’. As the writer of Hebrews put it;
Do not be carried about with various and strange doctrines. For it is good that the heart be established by grace … (Hebrews 13:9a).
For a brother or sister, then, to wander from ‘the truth’ is a dangerous thing; because it is to wander from something objectively true and into a state of error. There is no middle ground.
And that leads us, next, to …
2. OUR SOLEMN DUTY (v. 19b).
In verse 19, James wrote, “Brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back …” This is still speaking in the context of the church family; so James was speaking of a brother or sister wandering from the pathway of the truth and another brother or sister turning him or her ‘back’ to the truth from which he or she wandered.
This is describing the biblical idea of ‘conversion’—not in the sense of becoming a Christian, but rather of having gone in the wrong direction, and ‘turning around’ to go back the other way—from the wrong direction to the right direction.
The Bible warns us;
There is a way that seems right to a man,
But its end is the way of death (Proverbs 14:12; also 16:25);
And it assures us that it’s never God’s will that anyone travel down that wrong path to death. As the God Himself says in Ezekiel 18:30-32;
“Repent, and turn from all your transgressions, so that iniquity will not be your ruin. Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. For why should you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies,” says the Lord God. “Therefore turn and live!” (Ezekiel 18:30-32).
And God calls us, as His people, to have the same desire toward one another. In Leviticus 19:17, He Himself said to His people;
“You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor, and not bear sin because of him” (Leviticus 19:17).
But this leads us to a practical question: Why is it that, when we see a brother or sister wandering from the truth, we’re so often hesitant in doing our duty toward them? There might be several reasons. It may be because we feel the pressure of the secular culture around us to ‘mind our own business’. If the prevailing attitude of surrounding culture is that there is no absolute right or wrong, and no reliable measure of ‘the truth’, we may be tempted to keep silent because we don’t feel we have any authority to confront someone else’s wrong beliefs or wrong behavior. We might also find ourselves falling into a kind of sinful ‘apathy’. We live today in a ‘Whatever –!’ generation; and some of that same apathetic attitude may have crept into our own thinking as Christians. And very often, it’s because we simply don’t know what to do or how to go about doing it. We’re not sure when it’s the proper time for us to confront a wandering brother or sister … and so we don’t confront them at all. And frankly, sometimes we don’t do it because we don’t want to experience the harsh reaction we might experience if we do do it.
In the old days, when someone stopped being a regular attendee for a certain period of time, they got put on the ‘inactive member’ list. But if we—who are walking in the truth—don’t go out and actually rescue the inactive member, then it’s actually we who are being ‘inactive’.
Two things that ought to motivate us, then, are the command of God and a genuine love for the wandering brother or sister. And at the end of this passage, we find a third; and that is …
3. THE JOYFUL RESULT (v. 20).
In verse 20—with respect to the one who restores the wanderer—James wrote, “let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.” Verses 19 and 20 constitute what grammarians call a ‘conditional structure’; that is, an “if this or that is true, then this or that will be the case” kind of statement. The “if” part of the sentence is found in verse 19; and the “then” part of the sentence is found in verse 20.
And notice that James introduced the “then” part of the structure with “let him know” or “let it be known”. This is important to understand; because it means that all that James had said so far about the rescue of a wandering brother or sister was meant to lead up to bringing the reader to the things he wanted them to ‘know’.
He wanted them to know two things. First, he wanted them to know that the rescuer would “save a soul from death”. As he said in 1:13-15;
Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death (James 1:13-15).
Death is the consequence of sin—possibly in the sense of the loss of eternal joy and blessings, and very possibly in the sense of the loss of physical life. This would be true whether the ‘wanderer’ is a believer or not. And in the sense of an actual unbeliever, it could be true in the sense of rescuing them from eternal separation from God. But this certainly isn’t meant to say that we ourselves can actually ‘save’ anyone in an eternal sense. It’s probably best to understand ‘saving a soul from death’ then in an instrumental sense; that is, that the rescuer is presenting himself or herself to God as an instrument by which God turns a sinner back from error and is used by God in God’s work of saving a soul from the destructive course they’re on.
And second, James wanted his readers to know that such a rescuer would also “cover a multitude of sins.” The word that James used was kalupiō; and it means ‘to hide’ or ‘to cover’ something—sometimes in a literal sense of ‘throwing a veil over’ a thing. The Bible tells us;
He who covers his sins will not prosper,
But whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy (Proverbs 28:13);
And James was not talking about ‘covering’ sins by hiding them; but rather by confessing them and forsaking them—knowing that they are atoned for by the blood of Jesus. Sin is truly ‘covered’ only when it’s ‘confessed’; because it’s then that God looks upon the sinner as justified and made righteous in His sight by faith. As it says in Psalm 32:1-5;
Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven,
Whose sin is covered.
Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity,
And in whose spirit there is no deceit.
When I kept silent, my bones grew old
Through my groaning all the day long.
For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me;
My vitality was turned into the drought of summer. Selah
I acknowledged my sin to You,
And my iniquity I have not hidden.
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,”
And You forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah (Psalm 32:1-5).
And it may even be that, by this, many sins are covered; because a wandering brother or sister ceases from their wandering and is prevented from sinning further.
* * * * * * * * * *
And now, let’s close with a question: Is there a brother or sister in Christ in your life right now—whether in the church family, or in another church family, or in the absence of their church family—that God is laying it on your heart to go to and say, “Please, I plead with you; get back on the path”? If so, know that if you will faithfully do your duty, you will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.
What a worthy ministry! Go then in God’s grace … and rescue the wanderer!
AE
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