And what other means do we have
to approach unto the Lord except the blood of Christ, who is our
righteousness? Now we looked at some of these
verses, but we'll begin reading there. In verse 18, it says,
of his own will begat he us with the word of truth. that we should
be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. Wherefore, my
beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak,
slow to wrath. For the wrath of man worketh
not the righteousness of God. Wherefore, lay apart all filthiness
and superfluity or abundance of naughtiness and receive with
meekness the engrafted word which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the word and
not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer
of the word and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding
his natural face in a glass. For he beholdeth himself and
goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man
he was, But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and
continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a
doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. If any man among you seem to
be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his
own heart, this man's religion is vain. Pure religion, And undefiled
before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless
and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted
from the world. Now, the work of the Lord is that
which must occur in order for a man to be brought into an understanding
of any of these things. Now it is very common for men
to be religious. That's why James finishes this
passage up with pure religion. You know, religion is a thing
that's common to all men. Even those that are irreligious,
their religion is irreligion. In other words, They make a religion
out of not being religious. And a lot of people, they think
that that's really the height of freedom when they can say,
oh, well, I'm not religious. And you say, well, I'm not either.
But we have completely different concepts of what that is, generally,
when somebody speaks of that. Many people think that if somebody
speaks about the Word of God, that's religion. There's a song that says, give
me that old time religion. And usually what men mean by
that is they want to go back about 50 or 60 years and that's
what they consider the old time religion. But the old time religion
is what's here. You know, you've got to go way
back. You can't go back to grandma
and grandpa and dinner on the grounds and all the things that
men look back with fondness. And there's nothing wrong with
nostalgic looks back at the past. And I look back on my own past
as a young man and remember many blessings. that were mine, but
that's not the religion I'm seeking. We're not looking back to find
something to recapture. If we could just get back there.
Now, we're not trying to get back there. We're trying, by
the grace of God, to look unto Jesus, the author and finisher
of our faith, that we're ever pressing to the mark. We're not
going backwards or looking back to try to gain something from
our past. When I was growing up, men used
to always speak about, or they would have from time to time,
men have testimony, give their testimony, and it was always
about something that happened in the past. They talk about
when they came to the Lord. Well, there's nothing in the
world wrong with considering when it was that the Lord brought
you out of darkness and into the light. And some people have
a more definite time frame that they can put on that. They may
have been walking contrary to the way of God and ungodliness,
and the Lord dramatically turned them around. uh... the apostle
paul i mean he had a pretty dramatic conversion experience, did he
not? But many people don't have such a drama in their lives,
and oftentimes it's hard for them to necessarily point to
a moment in time when they first began to see. I couldn't tell
you the first moment in time whenever I had thoughts of the
Lord Jesus Christ, or even when I had thoughts of my need of
Him. I can point to a time when that became overwhelming to me.
I do know that. But you know, it's not important
when a man comes to know the Lord insofar as men are concerned. The Lord knoweth them that are
his. And our whole life from the moment of our conception
until our death is ordered and marked out by the Lord. And he
loves his people, and he guides our steps to bring us exactly
where he would have us to be. He said he would bring the blind
in a way that they knew not. We didn't know. I mean, these
children, they have no idea what their life is going to be. They have no way of knowing any
more than we have any way of knowing what next week's gonna
be. We don't know that. But by the grace of God, according
to His mercy, He brings us to a place where we rest in Him. That's all we can do. And that's
what it is to trust the Lord. It's not to always feel like
we're trusting the Lord. Sometimes we don't feel like
we're trusting the Lord. The Lord in his mercy brings
his people unto himself, and this is that which causes pure
religion to occur. Of his own will begat he is. We were born. We were born in
this world according to his sovereign mercy, but we are born again.
by a greater form, a more fantastic birth than our natural birth. And he begat us that we might
be a first fruits of his creatures among men. Not all men are born
again, but those who belong to him are. And it's not of the
will of flesh, nor the will of man, nor blood, but it is of
God. And that is a glorious thing
of His own will. Now, that's a thing that causes
some people a lot of trouble in their mind. You know, they'll
fight you over it. That it was according to their
will that they came to the Lord. And I'll be the first to admit
the scripture says that thy people shall be willing in the day of
thy power. There's no doubt about that the
people of God are willing to follow Him. They are willing
to follow Him, but they weren't willing to follow Him until He,
according to His mercy, made them willing in the day of His
power. And it was of His own will that
we were begotten and not our own. We must ever keep that in
mind. Now, so he goes on to say, and
we talked about some of this last week, wherefore lay apart
all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness. That is, we're
not to be a people that go out here and act like the rest of
the world does. Because the Spirit of God dwells
in us, and we exhort one another. Now sometimes, as the Lord would
teach us what we are by nature, We find ourselves acting about
that way. But there's a difference in those
whom the Lord is pleased to awaken and those who are not. And that
is when the Spirit of God moves upon those who belong to the
Lord, they see themselves for what they are. And he brings
them to a place of repentance. You know, God's people cannot
go on in total rebellion against God. They can't do it. He won't
let them do it. He'll bring them unto himself.
He does that. And we are to lay it aside because
we are to receive with meekness the engrafted word. What is the
engrafted word? It's the word of God that the
Lord puts in a man. Now how does that happen? I can't
tell you. But I know this, that when the
Lord engrafts the word of God into a man's heart, he knows
that it's the word of God. He knows that it's the truth
of God. You can't, you can bring the
best man out that ever lived that can argue a point, and he
can't convince the sons of God that this is not the word of
God. He can't do it. He can't convince a man that
Jesus Christ is not the Son of God. Peter said, Lord, to whom
shall we go? The house of words of eternal
life. We can't go anywhere else. We're not interested in anything
else. Philosophy has no hold on us.
We look to Christ because the engrafted word, he is the word. And he implants that within us. I don't know how that is, I can't
explain it, and I don't know all the theological ramifications
of how that is or whatever, but I know this to be true, that
the Spirit of God dwells in the sons of God. And there's not
a thing in the world you can do about that. You know, your
natural flesh sometimes rebels against that. The flesh lusteth
against the Spirit, but thanks be unto God the Spirit wars against
the flesh. And the Lord brings us exactly
where He wants us to be. Be doers of the Word and not
hearers only, deceiving your own selves. Now a lot of people
think that just you know, hearing the word of God and maybe reading
it every now and then, you know, that's gonna do you some good.
I remember as a kid in Sunday school, they used to have a little
card that you had to fill out, and had various little things
that you're supposed to check off, and one of them was if you
got your daily Bible reading. And that's important. I would
never, ever, tell somebody you don't need to read the Bible
daily. I mean, why wouldn't you? What in the world? I mean, if
you believe it's the word of God, why would you neglect it?
Why would it not be a thing that's precious to you? How would it
not be a thing that's precious to you? And so that's a good
thing, but it's not just reading the Bible. Because I remember
as a kid, you know, it was so ingrained in me that I needed
to do that, that sometimes maybe I was fixing to go to sleep,
and I'd think, well, I hadn't read my Bible today, and I'd
grab the Bible and throw it open, and I'd just read a verse, you
know, and then I'd go to sleep, and I'd figure, well, you know,
I read the Bible. Well, that, I'm not saying it
wasn't maybe some, the Lord will always take His word and apply
it any way He wants to, but that certainly was not being a hearer
of the word, was it? I mean, or it was being a hearer
of the word, but not a doer of the word. It was not a thing
that was precious to me. And so when he says here, be
ye doers of the word, not hearers only, you are deceiving your
own selves. If you think that this book right
here will do you some good. I remember one time a fella I
had broke down by the side of the road and this guy picked
me up. And he had a big old Bible up on his dash. And I was just
starting to be interested in really seeking the things of
God. And that made an impression on
me, you know, to see that Bible, because I'd been reading the
Bible. seeking to know something about it. And so I began a conversation
with him and I asked him, I said, I see you have a Bible. I said,
do you read it? And he says, oh no. He says, I just got that up there
so I don't have a wreck. He said, like it was a good luck
charm. And you know, that's a lot of
the way that people think about Going to church, you know somebody
will say, well, you know, I know what happened in going to church
as much as I ought to. Well, how much is you ought to?
I mean, how much ought you to go to church? I mean, you don't
go to church because you ought to. I mean, you go to church
because you want to. See, be ye not just a hearer
of the word, but a doer. And then he goes on to say something. He said, for if any be a hearer
of the word and not a doer, he's going to explain what he's talking
about here. He said, he's like a man beholding
his face, his natural face in a mirror. Now, every morning
probably most of you look in the mirror and some of us it
scares us when we look in there and we have to get our eyes adjusted
and think, who is that? We look in the mirror, but as
soon as we go out of there, I'm not thinking about what I look
like in the mirror. Maybe you are, I don't know.
But he says here, that's how a man who is a hearer of the
word, not a doer, he looks at himself and he knows that he
ought to do something. about what he's seeing in the
mirror, but soon as he gets away from the mirror, that thought's
gone out of his mind. We're not to be as those who
just look at ourselves in the mirror. but those who do something
about having what we saw when we looked in the mirror. And
may the Lord apply, only the Lord can apply that word to our
heart, but it is the engrafted word, and I believe this is a
true thing, that he will cause his people to be doers of the
word, and not hearers only. You can't be satisfied to be
a hearer only if the engrafted word is in you. You might for
a season, and you might from time to time grow lax or whatever,
but the Spirit of God works in us both to will and to do of
his good pleasure, and he does cause his people to be doers
of the word. So he's exhorting the sons of
God not to do something that they're not, but to be what they
are. See, there's a big difference
in trying to get folks to be religious. and exhorting the
sons of God be what they are. There's a big difference in that.
You know, we, you can't, it's like the old saying, you can
lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. We're not
trying to make the horse drink the water. What we're trying
to do is point out to the horse that he's thirsty. And if the
engrafted words in it, he says, you know, I am thirsty. I need
the Lord. I need the word of God. I want
to walk in the way of the Lord. That's the thing that he desires.
That's the thing that he wants to do. If a man is without that,
he's just like the man that looks at a mirror and goes on his way.
For he beholdeth himself, goeth his way, straightway forgetteth
what manner of man he was. Oh, that we might never forget
what manner of man we are. You know, that's the thing that
keeps a man humble is when he knows what he is. And the Spirit
of God came to convince the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. And that's what he does. I know
we live in an age when men, that's kind of like the opposite of
what men are saying. Oh, you don't need to be thinking,
you know, bad thoughts about yourself. You need to be uplifted
and what's the word, there's a word they use for it, affirm. You need to affirm one another.
Well, what we need, what the sons of God need is to affirm
to them that they have no righteousness of their own and that the only
righteousness that's of any use to them is the righteousness
of Jesus Christ. That's what the affirmations
of the sons of God is. Affirmation of the sons of God
is, oh man, y'all are great people. No, you're not great people.
You know you're not a great person. I mean, anybody that thinks they're
a great person does not have the engrafted Word in their heart. We're not great people. Only
by the mercy of Almighty God have we not been destroyed. That's
what it is to receive with meekness the engrafted Word, to know what
we are by nature. And I wear this out, but as John
Newton said, you know, he couldn't remember but two things. One
was what a great sinner he was, but the other was what a great
savior Christ is. And that's the only thing you
need to know. You see, the engrafted word lays that in your heart
and you can't escape it. You can't ever be satisfied with
self-righteousness. Now, you might be self-righteous
from time to time. All of us get on our high horse
from time to time, and we get to thinking, you know, that we're
maybe a little better than this one, that or the other, but when
the engrafted word, when it's brought to our awareness, what
happens? We say, man, you know, that's about foolish. I'm no
better than he is. And only by the grace of God
am I anything. Oh, he might work such a work
in us. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and
continueth therein. See, it's not just looking at
it, but it is walking in it. He looks at the perfect law of
liberty. What is the perfect law of liberty?
The law of liberty is that there is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus. That's the perfect law of liberty. See, there is no liberty for
a man who thinks he can somehow please God, and he's there all
the time laboring to do something to please God. He can't ever
measure up. He's not free, but we are free
in Christ. Whoso looketh into and continuous
therein, he being not a forgetful hearer. We didn't forget what
the truth is. That is that we're sinners and
Christ is the Savior. That's the truth, but a doer
of the work. That's what we are. Now listen
to this. This man shall be blessed in
his deed. Now a lot of people read that
to say that he shall be blessed by his deed. Well, that's not
what it says. It says he shall be blessed in
his deed. See, the blessing of the sons
of God is walking in the truth of God. It's not that we walk
in the truth of God so that we will be blessed. We're blessed
walking in the truth of God. I mean, that man shall be blessed
in his deed as not a forgetful hearer, but he knows what he
is by nature and he knows who Christ is. And then every day
there's a blessing to be had because he's no longer thinking
that he is going to better himself, but he's always thinking that
Christ is the one who is better. and that he might be found in
him, not having mine own righteousness. If any man among you seem to
be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his
own heart, this man's religion is vain. Now, who does he seem
to be religious to? What's he talking about? If any
man seem to be religious, that is if he thinks he's religious.
If he thinks he's good, but he can't control his own tongue,
This man's religion's vain. You know, if out of our mouth
comes forth the issues of life, it'll show what you are by nature. Now, all of us are prone to say
the wrong things from time to time. I mean, we do that. Some
of us do it more regularly than others. And that's not talking
about never saying the wrong thing, but it's talking about
having an understanding that our tongue belongs to the Lord,
that what we say and what we do is important. It's not just whatever we want
to do. I mean, I've had people say,
oh, well, you know, I'm just, I'm forgiven in the Lord, and
so it just don't really matter what I do. Well, that's the wrong
understanding. Because the scripture says if
we have the engrafted word, it's able to deliver our souls. And
the engrafted word convinces men of sin, righteousness, and
judgment. And we know what we are by nature,
and we know what we are prone to do. And we desire to move
from that. If any man among you seem to
be religious to himself, he seems that way in his mind. and bridleth
not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart. Because you see,
if a man doesn't seek, by the grace of God, to control his,
and when this says his tongue, I believe it means his life.
It's not just what he says, but he desires to control, that his
whole life be in control of the Spirit of God. That's his desire.
And if that's not present, he's deceived. And what he seems to
think, what he thinks he is, is in vain, and he is deceived. This man's religion is vain,
pure religion. And undefiled before God and
the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows, that
is to love his neighbor as himself. Now when it says to visit the
fatherless and the widows, talking about widows and orphans specifically,
But it more broadly means those who are not able to help themselves,
those who are in situations of need. And if a brother or sister
come to us and say they have a need, and we say, well, be
warmed and filled, and we give them not those things, how do
we say that we love them? So we are our brother's keeper,
and we are to be mindful of the needs of one another. We most
certainly are to pray for one another. But if a brother or
sister stands in need of something, we have no choice, dear brethren. We must help them in whatever
way we can. It might not be with money. You
know, everybody that's having a problem, money won't solve
that problem, but there are many, but we're to give ourselves to
one another. And this is pure religion, to
visit the Fatherless and with us in their affliction. And then
he says, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. Now
he didn't say to go out of the world. And you can't go into
the world and not have the spots of the world fall on you. And
so it doesn't mean that we're to go live somewhere in a cloister
where we're away from everybody so that the wickedness of the
world doesn't spot us in that way, but it's to keep ourselves
unspotted from the world even though all of this stuff is around
us. We're not participating in it.
See, that's what it means to be unspotted, is that we don't
participate in it. I mean, you know, you can't have
a public business and not have people come in there that's spouting
off wickedness and saying things that cause you to cringe. I mean, it's impossible that
that would ever be the case. If you go into the world, you're
going to be confronted with all this stuff, but we're not to
be participants in it. We're not to embrace it. We're
not to enjoy it. And I believe those who are given
the Spirit of God, they might do that for a season or to a
point, but they can't do it without conviction. They can't do it
without the Spirit of God teaching them, hey, you know, that's not
you. I mean, you know the, and I know, you know, words don't
mean a whole lot. But I cringe as much when I hear
religious men speaking about religion in an offhanded way. as I do with the man that comes
in cursing and blaspheming the name of God. Because to use the
name of the Lord Jesus Christ in an offhanded fashion is the
same thing as openly cursing him. It's taking the name of
the Lord in vain. See, that's a name which is above
every name. And it ought not to be spoken
lightly. And it ought not to be that men
would go around boasting of their religiousness. Keeps ourselves
unspotted from the world. The world has a religion, and
the world likes to pat men on the back. One thing that I hate
about as bad as anything is when somebody says, oh man, he's a
preacher. Now I'm not ashamed of being
what some men would call a preacher, but it pains me to think that
in the minds of some man they might think that that means that
I'm somehow something special or whatever. I mean, it's nothing, dear brethren.
I mean, that's not, we don't go through life, some people
won't let you know they're a preacher. You know, I haven't come in there
to, oh yeah, I'm, you know, such and such and this and that. I'm not the man you need to talk
to, you know, about that. May the Lord help us keep unspotted
from the world. We're to be in the world, but
not of the world. And we're to be those who are
ready to give to every man that asketh us a reason of the hope
that's within us. But we're not to be those who
go about talking about how religious we are. Now that's not to mean
that we would not share the gospel of Christ to all who will hear.
We will, we hope to, we desire to. But there is a religious
evangelism as well as a true evangelism. And may we be unspotted
from that which is simply for the world. Let's not be of the
world in any sense. May the Lord help us.