Luxury & Law
James 5: 5-6
Many who claim to believe on Christ live in luxury of self-righteous riches just as many rich men live in the luxury of ill-gotten temporal riches (Philippians 3:18-19). Both think they have need of nothing. And just as temporally rich men drag before the law to condemn and kill the just (James 2:6), likewise do religiously rich men. Instead of saying to Job "it shall be well for the righteous", his friends unjustly condemned and killed Job with their tongues, saying that God does not afflict good men in the manner Job was afflicted, concluding Job guilty. Job told them what James is saying here: wicked men--temporally rich and the self-righteously rich--enjoy great prosperity, which God's saints do not; men’s characters are not to be judged by the outward afflictions they suffer or by how rich they may or may not appear outwardly (James 2: 5.)
Come back tomorrow for the next article in this series.