I wanted to look at this afresh
with you, brand new. I wanted to learn, need to learn,
myself and listen to it, hear it as a little child. Read verses, I've got to turn
there, read verses, 22-27, chapter 1, James 1, 22-27. Be ye doers of the Word and not
hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For any man or any
one be a hearer of the Word and not a doer. He or she is like
unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass, He beholdeth
himself, and goeth his way, and straightway, or immediately,
forgeteth 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, or doing, If any man or person among you
seem to be religious, and bridleth not his or her 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, you know this, most of you
know this, some may not, but as the book of Romans is The book on justification with
God, before God, by faith, not works. That no man is, no one
is justified by works is evident in the Scripture. Or by grace,
you say, through faith. And even that's not of yourself.
It's the gift of God. being justified freely by the
redemption that's in Christ. That is, accepted by God, forgiven,
made holy by Christ. It's all by Christ. And faith
in Christ. That's the book of Romans. Well,
the book of James is speaking of the justification of your
faith. the proof of your faith, or proof
that faith is real, that you really have true faith. And this
is before men. But now, even God says to, the
Lord says to all the churches in the Revelation, those letters
to each one of them, He said, I know your works. That's the
first thing He said. I know your works. That's significant. And this is how serious this
is. Chapter 2, verse 18, it just said, faith without works. A
doer of the word, not a hearer only, but verse 18, if a man
say, yea, a man may say thou hast faith and I have work, show
me. James says, show me thy faith
without thy works. I'll show you. thee my faith
by my works. Thou believest there is one God,
thou doest well. The devils also believe and tremble."
In other words, true faith, saving faith is not just a head knowledge
of one God. But wilt thou know, O vain man,
that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified
by works or proved that he was justified? His faith worked. His faith. Works didn't save
him. James is not contradicting what
Paul wrote in Romans. But he said, read on, when he
offered Isaac his son upon the altar, and our Lord who put this
faith in Abraham. Abraham was an idolater. And
I've got to go on from this. The Lord gave him that faith.
He didn't know God, and God gave him that faith, okay? But even
after Abraham offered Isaac, the Lord said, Now I know that
you love me, seeing as thou hast not withheld thy son, thy only
son. God knew that. He gave him that
love. But yet He wrote that to show us. Now we know Abraham
does love him. We know that. We see that. Clearly,
read on in chapter 2, verse... Well, let's go on. Let's go back
to our text, okay? There's not enough time. So he
says in verse 22, be a doer of the Word, not hearers only, deceiving
your own selves. James tells us what true religion
is, and he exposes a mere profession of faith. He exposes, this is
an expose, an exposure of mere lip service, head knowledge,
head knowledge. All right, now he just said,
be a swift hearer, didn't he, in verse 19? Verse 18, he begat us with his
word. the kind of first fruits of his
creature. He's going to go on to talk about
this fruit of works in verse 19. So he says, let every man
be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath, hearing God's
Word swiftly, eagerly, hungrily. That's a sign. We're going to
see that in Daniel this morning. That's a sign of a true saving
faith. You hear that Word and you love
it. You long to hear it and want to hear it, anxious to hear it.
And the Word shuts your mouth. Not just in the beginning, but from then on it begins to
soften your speech. It begins to shut your mouth.
You begin to realize, like Job, I've heard of you, but now I
really see you, and I put my hand over my mouth, and I've
spoken things too wonderful for me. And if we've truly heard,
the Word is engrafted. It takes hold of the heart. That's
what it said in verse 21, receive with meekness like a little child
the engrafted Word. It takes hold of your being. This is the power of God, the
Word of God, the Spirit of God. If any man hath not the Spirit
of God, he is none of His. And God, the Holy Spirit, takes
the Word of God and plants it in the heart and creates
a new creature. And this is a new creature. Old
things pass away. The Lord begins to, with the
Word, remove the draws. and refine the silver by His
Word, by trials which prove which trial fell. And this Word will
put a watch over our lips, and James is going to speak a whole
lot about the tongue, isn't he? All through this book, as does
the Proverb. Because this is such an evidence
that God's done something. Because remember, in verse 26,
a man seemed to be religious and bridled, but not his tongue.
So, he says, first of all, the greatest importance is to hear
the Word of God, listen carefully, hungrily, as a little child,
listen carefully. And if we don't, if we don't,
The person said, it doesn't shut our mouths and we have too much
to say. Paul said, if any man thinketh
he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know it. As
I said at the outset, I didn't want to just look at my old notes
and all that. I need to learn this. I need
to learn this and hear this like I've never heard it before. As James said, if not, that person's
religion is vain. It's vain. All right? Verse 22, he says, Be you doers
of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. Now, whose word is this? It's
not James's. It's not Paul's. It's not Isaiah. No scriptures of any private
or personal interpretation by man. Holy men spake, the scripture
says, as they were moved by the Spirit of God. said to the Thessalonians,
I thank God you received the Word as it is in truth. Not the
words of men, but as it is in truth, the Word of God. This
is not James' word, it's Christ's word. Everything James is saying
here, the Lord told him to say it. It's his word. Alright? So, and you remember what Mary,
the Lord's mother, said after he rebuked her. Remember, she said to him one
time at a wedding, she said, they don't have any wine. Giving
him orders. Telling him. And our Lord said,
woman, what have I to do with thee? He rebuked her. She forgot who he was. And then she suddenly caught
herself and she said, whatsoever he saith, do it." Whatever he
says, do it. This is our Lord's Word. It's
not up for debate. It's not up for our approval.
It's not up for argument. Whatever he says, do it. Be ye
you, me, doers of the Word and not hearers only. We're all hearing
it right now. In every letter to the churches,
every letter, it ends this way. He that hath ears to hear, let
him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches. So everything
he said, we need desperately to hear it. Faith cometh by hearing. And so do works. So does fruit. We can't just conjure this up.
We can't just make ourselves do anything. Try it anyway. That doesn't work. It's the grace
of God. And he uses the Word of God by
the Spirit of God. He says you'll deceive yourself,
just to hear it only, deceiving your own selves. Now, you've
got to be a real fool to deceive yourself, don't you? to fool
yourself. You know, Scripture says beware
of evil men. Evil men and seducers shall wax
worse and worse, deceiving. They deceive a lot of people.
And being deceived. They are deceived. So He warns
us of evil false apostles. And one of the letters says that. You know, to Ephesians, you've
tried them that say they're apostles and they're not. But I've got
something against you. So we are to beware of evil workers
that deceive us. But there's one man that's the
most deceitful fellow of all that we've really got to beware
of more than anybody. He's in here. The heart is deceitful above
all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Oh, but you
don't know my heart. You just proved you don't know
your heart. Because David, a man after God's
own heart, said, create in me a clean heart. I don't understand that. I know
the Lord has given a new heart to His people. I know that. And
yet, somehow, this old man has some kind of heart or affections
or thoughts that's always there and will deceive you, will deceive
me. That's the man. That's the one
we need to be aware of more than anybody else. That deceitful man within us. He says, look into this mirror,
verse 23, for any be a hearer of the word, not a doer only.
He's like a man beholding his natural face in a glass. He beholds
himself, he sees himself, and he goes his way and straightway
forgets what manner of man he was. The Word of God is as a
mirror. A man beholding himself in a
glass, his face in a glass. The Word of God is, as it were,
a mirror that we're to look into, which shows us ourselves. This
is the first thing that actually, when we see God, we see ourselves.
When we see the Holy Lord, we see ourselves. Isaiah, when he
said, I saw the Lord, what did he say about himself? I'm a man
of uncleanliness. But at any rate, the Word of
God, we look into it and if God opens our eyes, we'll see ourselves
for what we really are. Sinful, wretched, miserable,
poor, blind, naked, ignorant, rebellious, and on and on it
goes. Filthy. This is all the Word of God says
to us about ourselves. There's none that doeth good,
no, not one. None righteous, no, not one. On and on it goes.
And we look into this law, the Word of God, and it tells us
we're all as an unclean thing. The Scriptures in Isaiah 42 says
of our Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ, the servant of God who came to
fulfill the law. The servant of God Christ who
came, it says, to magnify the law. It says he will magnify
the law and make it honorable. That is, blow it up, enlarge
it so that you can see what it's really saying. The law is spiritual,
Paul said. See, I used to think I was blameless. Saul of Tarsus. I used to think
I was blameless. I thought I knew the law. I didn't
mind being under it. I thought I knew it, the outward
performance of it. And he said, I was blamed, I
kept it all. But then when the law was magnified to it, when
the Lord enlarged it to show that it requires perfection in
thought as well as deed, in word, in motive, that God looks on
the heart. Paul said, it slew me. The law killed me. Self. my own self-worth, my own knowledge
I thought I had, my own goodness and righteousness. The law just
killed me. The law showed me that in your
flesh dwelleth no good thing. That's what the law does. That's
what the Word of God does. A magnifying law. I've told you
this before, but at the worst my eyesight gets, I have trouble
shaving. without a magnifying mirror.
Anybody? Mindy bought me this magnifying
mirror so I can really get a close shave. But I almost wish she
never bought that. I look into it and what I see
is a fella that's getting real old and real ugly and there ain't
nothing you can do about it. Well, that's a good illustration
of it. The older you get, the more you look into this Word,
it shows you yourself. You think, oh my, I'm not getting
any better. That's what the Word of God is
designed to do. And so, he says, if anybody goes
away from looking at the Word, and forgets what manner of man
they are and starts with their tongue, I'm a pretty good fellow.
Talking about their works, talking about their righteousness, talking
about their religion, talking about their prayers, talking
about this, talking about that. That man's religion is vain.
He looked into the Word, but he didn't see himself. She didn't
see herself. If someone goes away and starts
talking about others, starts gossiping, backbiting, finding
fault, being a judge of others. That woman did not see herself. She does not see herself. Her
religion is banned. If she's talking bad about others,
she hadn't heard a word. Hadn't heard a word. That's what
this is saying. Hadn't heard a word. If he or
she goes away and is not convinced that All their hope of salvation
is in Jesus Christ alone. Hadn't heard a word in this book
of sin. So, and on and on it goes with that. A doer of the
Word, though. He's talking about a doer of
the Word. Alright? A doer of the Word. Doing the Word. Verse 25, Whoso
looketh into the perfect law of liberty, He calls it, and
continueth therein. He being not a forgetful hearer,
but a doer of the work. This man will be blessed in his
deed, his doing. This woman, the Lord will bless
their deeds, their doings, their works. A doer of the work. Now,
this is called the law of liberty. Now, hear me carefully, and I've
already tried to say this, that nobody is accepted by God for
their works. Nobody is justified by works
before God. Nobody. Before or after salvation. God doesn't let us in after He
saves us by Christ, by us doing or keeping the law. No, no, no.
No, no, no. Nothing about doing that merits
the favor of God. But this is simply talking about
one who's truly been born of God, and the love of God put
in their heart, and they have a love to their Father, and a
love to His honor and glory, and a love to other people, will
do it. It's called a law of liberty,
though. It's called the law. David said, I love thy law. I love thy law. Paul said the
commandment is holy and just and good. There's nothing wrong
with the law. We love whatever God says, don't we? We want to
do it. Don't you want to do whatever
He says? Sure you do. If you're His child, you do.
And he calls this, though, the law of liberty in that the Lord
has set us free from the law of this do and live. The Lord has set us free from
the strict requirements of the Levitical law and the moral law
and the Mosaic law, this do and live. If you don't keep it perfectly,
you're cursed. If you do it, you're blessed.
We can't. We haven't. We never will keep
it perfectly. Christ was the doer of that law. Christ was the keeper of that
law. Christ is our covenant head, our law keeper. Christ is our
righteousness, okay? But Paul said in another book,
he said, we're under law to Christ. Whatever He says, do it. Whatever the Lord says, do it.
But not to be saved. Thank God, even what He tells
us to do, we can't do. But thank God, He's not going
to damn us for it. Whatever He says is good. His
commandments are not grievous. They're good. It's good for us. It's good for everybody. It's
for His glory, His honor. The law of liberty. The Lord
said, He that hath my word, and keepeth it. He loves me. Whoever
has my commandments, Christ said that. Christ said that. If you
have my commandment and keep... That's the person that loves
me. Like an obedient child, like a loving child loves his father. Like a young boy that looks up
to his elder brother and wants to be just like him and starts
trying to emulate him, do exactly like he did. That's love. It's not works. It's love. And that Scripture says so much
about, you know, at least half of every epistle. I've been reading
Brother Philpott on this. He's got a book on this, on the
precepts of Christ, the commandments of Christ. And he clearly brought
out, and I began to study, that at least half of every epistle
The first half is clearly showing us salvation by cry. And nearly the rest of half of
the epistles is telling us, walk like Christ. Walk like Christ. This is how He did it. This is
how you do it. If you love Him, this is how you do it. If you
want to be like Him, this is it. And I like that. And Scripture says things like
this, Be not weary in well-doing. He says, do good. It says, none
that doeth good. He said, do it anyway. Do good
unto all men, especially the household of faith. By the way,
Romans 2, it says, it's quoting Isaiah and other Scripture songs,
it says, there's none that doeth good. Well, you know, the Lord
called three men good men. Barnabas. It was Joseph of Arimathea. Job. Called them good men. Don't call them not good if God
says they were. Why? They must have been doing
good. Our Lord went about doing good.
And I want to be like Him. Now, God's people never acknowledge
anything they've ever done. If they do, they're a forgetful
hearer. One time the Lord said, I was
naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me.
I was hungry and you fed me. I was in prison. And all of His
people said, we don't ever remember doing this for you. And he said, you've done it to
the least of my brethren, you've done it unto me. But they didn't
acknowledge it, did they? God's people don't acknowledge
their own works. In fact, if we could do everything
that's required of us, what does the Scripture say? We're still
unprofitable servant. Because there's so much sin in
what we do. There's so much self. There's so much vainglory. There's
so much of me and self in it. It's almost impossible for us
to give an anonymous gift in it. Do an anonymous work. It's almost impossible. We want
somebody to find out about it. Are you honest? I'm guilty. So there's enough sin in our
best works to send us to hell. But it's called the law of liberty. Aren't you glad we're not saved
by our own works? And we've done all required of
us, we're still unprofitable servants. And someone who thinks
they've done anything commendable, anybody thinks they've done anything
commendable and deserves some praise and recognition, you haven't seen yourself. You haven't heard a thing. Or one who doesn't do what he
says. The one who sees it and says,
well, I can't do that, no use in trying. Or I'm saved by the
grace of Christ and it doesn't matter what I do. And I'll just,
He'll be merciful to me. I'll just go on and live like.
He hadn't heard a thing of it. The Lord says, because of these
things comes the wrath of God on the children. You hadn't heard
a word. You're not scared. You don't fear the Lord. 1 John 3. Now, I knew we were going
to be a little late. Some folks were late coming,
and look at 1 John 3 real quickly with me. 1 John 3. And I'm not going to explain any of this
away. I'm just going to read it for what it is. 1 John 3 says
in verse Beloved, now are we the sons
of God. It doth not yet appear what we shall be. We don't feel
like we're sons of God, do we? We don't feel like we look like. If we take a good look in the
mirror, we don't feel like we look like the Son of God or act
like Him. But we know that when He shall appear, we shall be
like Him. We shall see Him as He is. And every man that hath
this hope in Christ purifieth himself, even as he is pure.
Not only is that hope in Christ, Christ the one that purifies
us, but they endeavor to be like Him. What's that? Pure. by the blood of Christ, by the
Word of God. Whosoever committeth sin means
continuing and just practicing and transgresses the law. Sin is a transgression of the
law. You know he was manifested to take away our sin. Christ
is not a very good Savior, is He, if He leaves. The Holy Spirit
is not a very good Holy Spirit if He leaves a person wallowing
in that sin. He came to take away our sin.
In Him is no sin. Whoever abides in Him, oh, what
a verse, sinneth not. Whosoever sinneth hath not seen
Him, neither known Him. Little children, let no man deceive
you. He that doeth righteousness is
righteous, even as He is righteous. Now to go on down, I've got to
hurry. My little children, let us not
love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth. Hereby
we know we are of the truth. Let us share our hearts before
Him. Go back to our text. Our Lord says, this man will
be blessed in his doing. Not saved by it, but blessed. It's more blessing to give than
to receive. That man, this person will be
blessed in their doing. All right, look at verse 26 and
27. If any man among you seem to
be religious, bridleth not his tongue. It deceives his own heart. This man's religion is vain. And I meant to say this. This
mirror is, as it were, a two-sided mirror. You've looked into double
mirrors, haven't you? First thing, it sees your own
face, and it shows us our sinfulness. Well, thank God it gives us the
light of the knowledge of the glory of God in another face. In the face of the Lord Jesus
Christ, we see His face throughout this mirror, as it were. And
that makes us want to be like Him. We see ourselves and say,
Lord, Adam's image now effaced. Stamp that image in its place. Don't we? I want to be like Him. And beholding, Paul wrote this
to the Corinthians, he said, we all behold Him as in a face,
as in a glass, His face, and are changed from the same image,
from glory to glory. This is the only way you can
be changed, is by holding Christ, looking to Him, looking at Him,
and asking, Lord, make me like Him. Get rid of this old fellow
and make me like Him. So, in verse 27, I'm going to
close with this. Pure religion, true religion,
real religion. Religion means devotion. Religion
means consecration. Everyone in here is religious.
Religious, that is, you're devoted to something,
someone. Pure, true religion, the religion
of God, people consecrate, undefiled, Before God and the Father is
this, to visit the fatherless orphans and widows in their affliction. The orphans and widows who are
afflicted. And, this is true religion, keep
himself unspotted from the world. Now, our Lord, the fatherless orphans, we don't
have any in here, do we? How are we going to do that?
visit orphans, no parents, no help. Let me remind you that
back when this was written, there was no welfare, there was no
laws, there was no Social Security, there was nothing, no pension
plan, no nothing. When a woman lost her husband,
she lost She was not the heir. If they
had any children, they got it all. She lost everything like
Naomi, like Ruth. Okay? 1 Timothy 5 talks about
widows indeed that don't have anybody. Don't have anything. The church back then was to take
them in. If they were 60 years old and
above, the church was to take them in and care for all their
needs. Because the government wasn't
doing it. And they didn't have anything.
Widows indeed. But he said those that have widows
who have children, that's their responsibility. To take care
of their mothers or fathers, widower. But one old wise man
said this, and it's certainly a good thing to visit people,
but it's talking more about just paying a visit. The Lord visited. He said, Shall I not visit Israel
for this adequate? What is man that thou visitest
him? It's not talking about just paying
a visit, not sitting and having tea with. Talking about going
to see to those needs and meeting those needs. If you see there's
a real need and you meet those needs. In fact, the true wit
is about orphans. There's some men years ago, you
know, our government, which is good, it's a good thing, takes
care of things like this. And we're so glad, we're thankful.
But back years ago when that wasn't the case, there were men
like Whitfield, men like Spurgeon who opened orphanages and people that worked there.
It was a real need, a real need. And the principle here is, our
Lord is teaching us, true religion is like the Good Samaritan, the
Good Samaritan. Our Lord said, some people passed
by and saw this fellow lying in a ditch and they said, poor
fellow, I'll pray for him. And they went on and didn't do
anything about it. And our Lord said, now this is a good neighbor.
This Samaritan came by and picked him up out of the ditch, put
him on his own animal, dressed his wounds and gave money and
said, whatever you need, I'll do it. And that's what our Lord
said. See a need and meet it. And there are many, many needs
we can seek to. And like washing feet. We don't
need to wash one another's feet. But there are things that need
care. And we can see those needs. And
one wise man said this. Listen to this. Because the law
is spiritual. Scriptures are spiritual. He
said, we may not have any orphans in our midst, may not have any
widows indeed in our midst, but the person next door to you may
be a widow or an orphan. In other words, if God is not
their father, or if Christ is not their husband, they don't
have a husband. You need to go over there and
tell them about the husband for widows. You hear that? Or some, God is not their Father.
And many orphans around us are without a Heavenly Father. Go
tell them who the Father is, that you need the Father. We
can do that, can't we? Oh my, if any be a doer, just
a hearer only and not a doer. Lord, we need help now. We need
to learn this all over again.