In this episode, based on the book of James chapter 5, we are exhorted to be patient for the Lord's return, knowing that He is the righteous judge who will avenge the evil done here.
And in verse 5: "You've lived in pleasure on the earth, you've nourished your hearts," and there's a day when you think that there is nothing more, there's only just the days down here. But he goes on in verse 6: "You condemned and killed the just, and God doesn't actually stop you. No, God doesn't stop you."
But then in verse 7 he comes onto the spiritual side; he says, "Be patient, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord." There's a great exhortation in the Scripture to the waiting and the patience, because as he says here, the farmer waits for the seed, the crops, to mature, and he has to be patient; he cannot speed up the process.
Now, that's what he's meaning to say: look, you put the seed in the ground, you plant an apple tree or a fig tree or whatever, there's nothing that you can do that will really speed that process. You have to wait patiently for the harvest. And he says you've got to have long patience until you receive the early and the latter rain.
And let me say that there is a spiritual lesson here: spiritually, we're sowing seed – when we preach the Gospel, when we witness, we're sowing the seed of the Word – and that seed needs the rain, which is the Holy Spirit.
