James 5:7, commentary and pictures

Be patient unto the coming of the Lord as the husbandman waits with long patience for the precious fruit of the earth until he receives the early and latter rain. Strengthen and establish the heart because the coming is near, refraining from grudging and grievances against brethren for the Judge stands at the door. The early rain was the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at the beginning of the Christian age at Pentecost to start growth, and the latter rain is the more abundant outpouring promised for the last days near the close to ripen the harvest. The latter rain will not make ready those who continue in sin and neglect preparation, but is received by those who have purified the soul through obedience to the truth and gained victory over pride, selfishness, love of the world and every besetting sin. It is the refreshing from the Lord's presence that revives and strengthens the faithful to pass through the time of trouble and empowers the loud cry of the third angel with great power to ripen the golden harvest for God.

Farmer's Patient Waiting

The call is to brethren to be patient until the coming of the Lord, illustrated by the husbandman who waits with long patience for the precious fruit of the earth until he receives the early and latter rain. The farmer's patient waiting for the earth's precious crop through the early and latter rains is the pattern for waiting patiently for the Lord's coming. That wait calls for steadfast, strengthened hearts because the Lord's coming is near. The coming will bring deliverance and rest, so faith is to be kept strong while awaiting it, enduring while awaiting the Lord and awaiting patiently until the crop is brought to maturity.

The farmer's wait illustrates steady, hopeful patience while awaiting what God has promised. The image shows that the promised harvest takes time, so believers are to remain patient while they await Christ's return and to endure in that waiting. This patience is not slothfulness, for believers are to remain diligent while waiting for the Lord's coming as the farmer waits long for the harvest that depends on the early and latter rains.

The verse stands near the judgment of rich oppressors. Their wealth, gained through injustice and withheld from the poor, will not make them great in God's sight. The Lord will punish their wrongs.

The early and latter rain show God's provision in nature: He sends sunshine and rain, forms clouds, and gives dew so the earth grows food to supply bodily needs. These gifts do not restore His moral image in people without their careful cooperation with Him, including learning to care for the body and obey nature's laws. Harvest blessings point to spiritual blessings, with all good things coming from God as Creator and giver. The farmer's patient waiting until the early and latter rains have done their work shows that harvest takes time, and those who depend on a harvest without sowing face a terrible future harvest.

Enduring Until Christ Returns

Believers are to be patient until the coming of the Lord, as a farmer waits with long patience for the precious fruit of the earth until the early and latter rains come. That waiting calls for steadfast, strengthened and established hearts because the coming of the Lord is near. Faith is to be kept strong in that waiting because the Lord's coming will bring deliverance and rest. Endurance in awaiting the Lord is therefore the lesson of the farmer's patient expectation of the promised harvest.

The call is to endure in the same way while awaiting the Lord, waiting patiently as the farmer waits until the early and latter rain comes. That patient endurance includes remaining watchful and drawing strength from God as the expected harvest is awaited. The farmer's long wait through both rains thus pictures steady endurance sustained by God until Christ comes.

This patience is applied to strengthening the heart and to refraining from grievances, grudging and resentment against fellow believers. Believers are to establish their hearts and avoid resentment against one another while they wait. The reason given is that the coming of the Lord is near and the Judge stands at the door.

After the disappointment of the Advent movement, this patient, watchful endurance meant holding fast to confidence in the movement amid trial and danger. It meant waiting, watching and praying until light came. When light came, faith in God's word showed the waiting ones Jesus pleading His blood in the heavenly sanctuary before the ark in the most holy place.

Meaning of Early Latter Rain

The early and latter rains do different work in bringing the harvest to maturity, with the early rain giving life and beginning growth while the latter rain ripens the crop and carries the work to completion in still greater measure. The former rain starts the work in the heart, causing the seed to germinate and take good root, and the latter rain cannot bring that work to perfection unless the former has first done its part. Neglect of the former cannot be made up by the latter, so the light already given must be received, with confession and forsaking of sin, prayer, consecration to God, and growth in Christian virtues, or the latter work may not be recognized or received even when it is taking place.

The early rain is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at the commencement of the Christian age, in apostolic days and at Pentecost. That life-giving outpouring followed Christ's ministry and death and brought thousands to faith as first fruits, causing the gospel seed sown at that time to take root so that the church enjoyed the gifts of the Spirit. The latter rain is promised as a future and more abundant outpouring for those living in the last days. It will come near the close of the age and of this dispensation to ripen the golden harvest for God, and Christians are to seek it in faith as they give themselves to saving the lost. Asked for by preaching the Word rather than human speculations, by putting away dissension and living in unity, by giving self to God for the saving of the lost, and by asking in faith, it will come.

Those who failed to receive and value the early rain will not recognize or understand the value of the latter rain when the Spirit is poured out. The early work of the Spirit prepares people to see and appreciate the latter, making reception of the first necessary to discerning the second. The latter rain is spiritual grace and heavenly refreshing that ripens the harvest and prepares the church for the coming of the Son of Man. Believers are to seek this pouring out of grace and the Spirit earnestly in prayer and receive it by faith, seeking the Spirit's work day by day and remaining ready in dependence on God to perfect His work in them, without claiming to know when the outpouring will come.

Receiving the latter-rain blessing requires continued spiritual progress and readiness. Church convocations, home-church gatherings, and occasions of personal work for souls are appointed opportunities for God to give both the early and the latter rains.

Preparing for Latter Rain

The refreshing of the latter rain does not take the place of necessary preparation, and it will not make ready those who continue in sin and neglect that work. It is received by those who have first gained victory over pride, selfishness, love of the world, every besetting sin, and every wrong word and action, and who have purified their souls through obedience to the truth. That preparation must be made before the time of trouble, when there will be no further opportunity to become ready and those unprepared will be left without shelter in the day of the Lord.

The latter rain falls on those who have remedied defects in character, cleansed the soul from every defilement, emptied the heart of selfishness, and prepared the heart in readiness for the gift from heaven. As the early rain fell on the disciples at Pentecost, so this spiritual outpouring comes after that cleansing work in patient waiting for the Lord's coming. People must receive the light they already have, confess and forsake sin, pray, consecrate themselves to God, and grow in Christian virtues. The former rain begins the work in the heart and the latter brings it toward completion in greater measure, but the latter cannot make up for neglecting the former, so that without this response they may fail to recognize or receive the Holy Spirit's latter-rain work even when it is taking place around them.

Ministers and people living in worldly ambition, lack of consecration to God, devotion to self, and self-deception in which they think they are right when they are wrong are wholly unfitted to receive the latter rain and unprepared for the time and work of preparation. To be prepared they must stand firm in faith and reject vanity, divisiveness, and bitterness. They must heed the counsel of the True Witness, overcome, endure every test, set their hearts in order so that God's truth lives in them and purifies them, and do all to stand against Satan's wrath and devices to cause shipwreck of faith.

The latter rain will not refresh or strengthen those who remain idle and fail to use the abilities God has given them. Believers are to prepare by cleansing their lives and keeping close to God, and the future outpouring will then empower them to proclaim the truth boldly and widely. That preparation includes preaching the Word of God instead of human speculations, putting away dissensions and living in unity, giving self to God for the saving of the lost, and asking in faith for the blessing, and asked for in this way it will come. Christians are to seek this promised blessing in faith, more abundant than the former rain in the apostles' days, as they give themselves to saving the lost.

Just now is the day of mercy and salvation when the Lord gives the latter rain as showers of the Holy Spirit from heaven in large measure. It comes unexpectedly at times with deep movings upon hearts and minds that let go of selfish purposes and give up what God has convicted them He forbade them to have. Hearts full of unbelief show contempt for these manifestations, do not drink in of the Spirit, feel annoyed at the outpouring, manifest their own natural dispositions and bitterness of soul, and say it is only excitement and not the Holy Spirit.

Latter Rain Empowers Finish

The latter rain is the refreshing from the presence of the Lord that gives great power to the loud cry of the third angel. Those who persevere in seeking victory and salvation are enabled to speak the truth powerfully, and honest hearers who had been kept from hearing it embrace it without fear even when opposed by their families. It revives and strengthens the faithful to pass through the time of trouble as they approach their last conflict, the time of Jacob's trouble, having grown up into Christ and partaken largely of His Spirit. At the closing of the third message, as it swells to a loud cry, the power of God rests upon His people as they finish their work and prepare for the coming trial. That closing work is attended with great power and glory, those who receive the refreshing partake of that glory, and their faces shine with the light attending the third angel.

When God's people attain to primitive faith and practice under the last message, the latter rain will revive the gifts of the Holy Spirit and manifest them again in all their fullness to ripen the golden harvest for God. The early rain was the life-giving outpouring at the commencement of the Christian age in the sowing of the gospel seed, causing it to germinate and take good root so that thousands were brought to faith as first fruits. The latter rain is to be poured out at the close of the age in greater measure to ripen the harvest, and God's truth may take time to grow in difficult conditions, yet patient labor can yield strong, abundant fruit, as will be seen in the future quickening of Britain by God's word and love. When Christians bear fruit to God's glory and the world is sown with the gospel, the last harvest pictured by waiting for the precious fruit will ripen and Christ will come to gather the precious grain.

The latter rain is still coming, though a few drops have already fallen in the healing of the sick. It will come suddenly, like the midnight cry, and with ten times its power. It is a future genuine work of God that has not yet arrived and will come with strong evidence. When it comes, fanatical, unconsecrated and unbalanced persons will press into it and Satan will work through them, with far greater evidences of fanaticism than in earlier or ordinary revivals. That mixture does not prove the work false, so it must not be condemned or stopped because of it, but errors in it should be corrected as privately as possible, for condemning a genuine moving because of mixed fanaticism will lead to condemning the latter rain itself.

Applying Patience in Life

Like the farmer who waits through early and latter rain for the precious fruit of the earth, Christians are to wait patiently for God's word to bear fruit in life, receiving it, holding it fast, yielding fully to its control, and letting it govern life until its purpose is accomplished. Spiritual graces mature through a process of growth, often in difficult circumstances that God uses to develop them. Trials and afflictions can strengthen spiritual life and mature faith, meekness, and love, for God may answer prayers for the Spirit's graces by placing people where those qualities can grow.

The same long patience of the farmer waiting for crops is needed with people who learn truth slowly, by continuing to open Scripture to them step by step without being discouraged by their gradual understanding. Brethren waiting for the Lord's coming are to obey God rather than the devil's scheming attractions, seeking earnestly for sanctification of soul, body, and spirit. Christ as the great Healer purifies, sanctifies, and redeems the whole physical and spiritual nature through obedience to all His commandments, so that His presence revealed in believers makes earthly homes bright and beautiful. That presence fits them as holy and undefiled subjects for His mansion above, as members of His royal family and children of the heavenly King.

The afflicted are to seek the Lord in faith and follow the directions of the chapter, trusting God to raise them up if it serves His glory. Patient reliance on God while awaiting His help includes prayer and trust in His care alongside measures taken for the sick, as seen when a sick child recovered. When God's people lose connection with God and rely on people, the message of redemption with its latter rain comes to them calling them to search Scripture, especially the prophecies about the last days where important truths are revealed.