We go to James chapter 1 and
verse 26. James chapter 1, verse 26. Listen to this word from God
the Holy Ghost very carefully. James 1, 26. If any man among
you seem to be religious. If any of you appear by your
preaching, by your talk, by your behavior, by your church attendance,
by the things you do, if any of you appear to be spiritual,
religious people, or if you think of yourself as a spiritual, religious
person, How often you hear people say, I am a spiritual man. I am a spiritual man. Are you
religious? James says, if you appear to
be religious, if you appear to be spiritual to others or to
yourself, embritleth not his tongue. You think you're religious and
other people think you're religious. You think of yourself as one
who is spiritual and others think of you as one who is spiritual. But you boast about your works.
You like to talk about yourself and what you have done and what
you do. You like for others to hear about
the good things you do and talk about the good things you do.
And you speak ill of those you call your brothers and sisters
in Christ. You slander them, backbite them,
gossip about them, misrepresent them in name, in character. You don't take any care to bridle
your tongue. You speak your mind, say what
you want to. If it hurts other people, you
think to yourself, they shouldn't be so thin-skinned. They ought
to be able to take it. The psalmist said, I said I will
take heed to my ways that I sin not with my tongue. I will keep
my mouth with a bridle. God, hold my tongue while the
wicked is before me. Set a watch, O Lord, before my
mouth. Keep the door of my lips. We all talk too much about ourselves
and too much about other people. How sad. We ought to speak much
about other people when speaking well of them and nothing about
our brethren when speaking ill of them or calling into question
something about them. If you've got a question, just
keep it to yourself. You don't need to yak about it.
Nobody else needs to know your thoughts. And when you see something
that can be used to promote the name and reputation and the esteem
of a brother or sister in Christ, promote their name, reputation,
and esteem. That ought to be our desire.
James said, if you appear to be religious and you don't bridle
your tongue, watch this, he deceiveth own heart. If we seem to be religious
but don't bridle our tongues, if your religion and mine doesn't
control our lives, our show of religion, our practice of religion
is but the deceiving of our own hearts. Paul puts it another
way in 1 Corinthians 11, He says it is just eating and drinking
damnation to yourself. The practice of religion, if
it doesn't control your life, if your religion doesn't determine
how you live, if your religion doesn't cause you to live in
this world soberly, righteously, and godly for the glory of God,
your religion is but a deception to your own heart. It is but
eating and drinking damnation to yourself. This man's religion
is vain. What strong language. What strong
language. James has declared here by inspiration
things that I would be reluctant to think or to declare were they
not written right here. Such religion, James says, is
useless and unprofitable. It is vain, it's empty, it's
meaningless. It will avail nothing and it
will carry you to hell at last. I've been reading this 26th verse
for several weeks and praying God save me from vain, empty,
meaningless, Christless religion. God save me from vain, empty,
meaningless, Christless religion. True religion, true spirituality
is not outward, ceremonial, and ritualistic. There are certain
outward ordinances, ceremonies if you want to use that word,
that we maintain. Baptism and the Lord's Supper.
We maintain these because the Lord Jesus commands it, he established
them, and he tells us to maintain them. But they're not just rituals.
Baptism is the believer's public confession of faith in Christ. Our public identification with
Christ and his gospel. And the Lord's Supper is a visible
public remembrance of Christ who died for us, anticipating
his glorious second advent. But these things are not the
substance. They're not the essence of true
religion. True religion is not merely doctrinal
precision. It's much more than that. Doctrine
is important. I think you know I stressed that
sufficiently. It's essential to true religion.
You can't have true religion and false doctrine. You can't
have true religion and heresy. The two won't go together, but
you can certainly believe all the right doctrines and not know
God. You can hold sound, orthodox,
biblical creed and be thoroughly, thoroughly true to the letter
of the scriptures, and yet your religion be altogether false. I'll give you two examples to
clarify that. Saul of Tarsus was precisely accurate, thoroughly
orthodox in his doctrine. But he didn't know God. Cornelius
believed exactly the same thing Saul of Tarsus did. But Cornelius
was a devout man, one who worshipped God. Through religion. It's not just doctrine. It's
not just ceremonies. and true religion is not merely
outward religious behavior. For most people, Christianity
is no more than an outward conformity to social standards of righteousness
that vary from place to place and time to time with varying
generations. Their confession of faith runs
something like this, I don't smoke, drink, cuss, or chew,
and I don't run with those who do. But the kingdom of God is
not in meat and in drink. The kingdom of God is not in
meat or in drink, but in righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy
Ghost. I have begun the message stressing,
stressing with dogmatism, that true religion, true spirituality,
controls a person's life. But controlling your life in
a manner that men approve of is not true religion. Just outward
religious behavior is not true religion. Multitudes of people
have what people call a good testimony. My dear mother, bless
her heart, she didn't know anything at all about things of God. That's just fact. I wish it was
otherwise. But she would often speak, say,
well, Bill has a good testimony. He always had a good testimony.
What difference does that make? What's the importance of somebody
who doesn't know God thinking well of you? What's the importance
of somebody who doesn't know God from a billy goat bragging
about how you live? The importance of it is it makes
you feel good. It makes you feel important.
True religion is not just a change in outward behavior. Whatever
godliness is, it's not something that a lost, unregenerate person
can produce, and it's not something he can recognize. More than that,
godliness never changes, whatever it is. Time doesn't change it. Location doesn't change it. Circumstances
don't change it. A lot of folks practice what
I call regional sanctification. Something that's godly in this
part of the world is ungodly in that part of the world. Something
that's all right in that part of the world is terrible in this
part of the world. I've often used the illustration when I
was first converted in the South, down where we were raised. Nobody
much around Winston-Salem ever, none of the preachers ever fussed
a whole lot about smoking. Not many of them fussed a lot
about smoking. There was a reason. Because the whole state was built
on tobacco. Everybody lived off tobacco.
But man alive, if one of the religious folks caught you drinking
a glass of wine, oh, that was terrible. That was terrible.
Oh, nobody knows God would do that. Up north, I found out very
soon, folks from up there, now man, they were death on tobacco. Oh, they were death on tobacco.
How could anybody who knows God smoke a cigarette? I just can't
understand that. And they say that while they're
drinking a glass of wine. Because that was perfectly all right.
That was just fine. They considered godliness by
what they measured godliness to be. Don't be guilty of the
same. True religion is more than outward
behavior. One more thing in this regard.
True religion. True spirituality is an inward
spiritual knowledge of the living God. An inward spiritual knowledge
of the living God as he reveals himself in you in the person
of his darling son. Our Savior said, This is life
eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and
Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent. Go back to Philippians
chapter 3. I read this to the men back in
the office just a few minutes ago, and we have read it many,
many times here, but read it with me. Philippians chapter
3, verse 3. We are the circumcision. That
is, we are God's true covenant people. We are those who have,
in reality, that circumcision which is of the heart, which
is what was represented in the physical circumcision of Abraham
and his seed. We are God's true people. We are God's covenant people. We are God's children, which
worship God in the Spirit. Worship God them. Worship God in the Holy Spirit
and worship God in our spirits and rejoice in Christ Jesus. We find all our hope, all our
hope, all our righteousness in Jesus Christ the Lord and have
no confidence in the flesh. We have no confidence before
God in any regard because of something in our flesh, something
done by us, something that we perform, but all our hope is
in Christ Jesus the Lord. The fact is any natural man or
woman, if he chooses to do so, can understand and accept all
the outward aspects of religion. He can understand and believe
either Calvinism or Arminianism as a system of doctrine. Somebody
says, a fellow can't believe the five points of Calvinism
and not be a believer. I beg to differ. You can go to hell
holding the five points just like you can holding on to free
will. It's easy enough for anyone to perform outward works of religion.
Anybody can straighten up and fly right if it's worth something
to them. Anybody can. Well, a fellow can't
get off alcohol. Yes, he can if he gets a dose
of religion. I've seen it many times. Seen it many times. Fellow
can't quit things. Oh, yes, he can. Oh, yes, he
can. You can live a good, straight, upright, morally decent life
in the name of God and never know God. Multitudes do. Multitudes do. I've read about, you've seen
I forgot what the movie was now, one of the priests of Rome went
years ago and united himself with a colony of lepers, knowing
that it would cost him his life so that he could serve those
lepers. It is a noble thing, a noble thing for any man to
be willing to sacrifice his life in a cause of helping other people,
but that's not true religion. Anybody can practice any stricture
of religion and not know God. It's easy enough to straighten
up your life and quit running around and acting like you're
a madman, but real, inward, spiritual, Reality, true religion, this
is something both foreign and offensive to all men and all
women by nature. True religion, true religion,
true religion will never please your flesh. True religion, true
spirituality is always contrary to your flesh. All true Christianity
comes by divine revelation. It is the supernatural revelation
of Christ in the heart. It has something to do with the
person of our Redeemer. It is that which a man or woman
experiences in time, not something we experienced. Oh, I had such
an experience of religion. Quit looking back to yesterday. True religion, true spirituality
is something we experience day by day in the knowledge of God
our Savior. I don't pretend to be an authority
on such. I don't pretend to have a corner
on the truth of God. I know better. There's much,
much, much in this book that I don't know. Much about God
that I don't understand. My puny brain just can't get
hold of the infinite God. I recognize that. But let me
give you some things that I do know. Things that identify my
religion. And I'm speaking from personal
experience and personal knowledge because I don't know of a better
way to address the subject. My religion is my subject tonight.
Number one, my religion begins with what I know and believe
about God. begins with the revelation of
God Himself. This is where it began with Nebuchadnezzar.
Turn back to Daniel chapter 4. Daniel chapter 4. It is not possible
for any of us to know God until God is pleased to make Himself
known. Canst thou by searching find
out God? The knowledge of God begins with
God revealing Himself in us. I know that God Almighty is absolutely
sovereign. Now I stress this aspect of God's
being in this generation because this is the one characteristic,
the one attribute of God that almost everybody in the religious
world denies. Listen to this, Daniel chapter
4 verse 34. And at the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted
up mine eyes unto heaven, and mine understanding returned unto
me. And I blessed the Most High,
and I praised and honored him that liveth for ever and ever,
whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom is
from generation to generation. And all the inhabitants of the
earth are reputed as nothing. And he doeth according to his
will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the
earth, and none can stay his hand or say unto him, What doest
thou? Now turn to Romans chapter 9,
Romans the 9th chapter. People want to identify things. What do you mean by sovereignty?
That's not too hard to identify. When I say that God is sovereign,
I'm saying that God always in absolute control of all things. Now you've got two choices. Either
God is in control or God is controlled. One of the two. Either God's
in control or something or someone greater than God controls Him. That's what you're saying when
you say something else controls God. People talk about Satan
controlling what God does. People talk about men controlling
what God can or cannot do by their will. What foolishness! What foolishness! To say such,
to think such, is to make God subject to the Prince of Darkness.
It is to make God's will subject to the will of man. And the Word
of God is specific and clear in identifying this. God Almighty
totally sovereign. Now sometimes you'll have folks
that will say, well we recognize God's sovereign in this aspect
of things, that aspect of things. But when it comes to God's salvation
they tell us now God's done all He can but the rest is up to
you. God's done all He can but you're
not a robot and God's not going to force you to do anything you
don't want to do. If God doesn't force you to believe on His Son
you never will. If God doesn't force you to bow
to Him, you will not bow to Him. It's just that simple. God Almighty
is absolutely sovereign, especially in the matter of salvation and
grace. Romans 9, verse 11. The children
being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the
purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but
of him that calleth. It was said to her, the elder
shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have
I loved, but Esau have I hated. Now I know people read that and
they say, oh, that's deep, that's profound. Nobody can understand
that. If you read that in the Advocate
Messenger, you'd understand it. You wouldn't have any trouble
reading that if you read that and said, I love this man and
I hate that man. You wouldn't have any trouble
understanding that. He loves that man and hates that one.
What did God say? Jacob have I loved, but Esau
have I hated. Well I don't like that. Take
it up with God. But that's what he said. Jacob
have I loved, but Esau have I hated. What shall we then say? That's
not right. Is there unrighteousness with
God? Who are you to challenge that? God forbid. For he saith
to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I
will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then
it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but
of God that showeth mercy. For the scripture saith to Pharaoh,
even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might
show my power in thee, that my name might be declared throughout
all the earth. Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have
mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. thou wilt say then unto me, why
doth he yet find fault? How often have you had fellows
ask you that? Well, if that's the case, how can God judge anybody?
Again, I say, take it up with God. This is what he says. For
who hath resisted his will? Nay, but, O man, who art thou
that replyest against God? Shall the thing formed say to
him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the
potter power over the clay? of the same lump to make one
vessel into honor and another into dishonor? He gives us the
example that he gives to Jeremiah back in Jeremiah 18. He says,
Jeremiah, if you want to know who I am and who you are, go
down to the potter's house and watch the potter. There he is,
and he has a vessel on the wheel, and the vessel is marred in the
hand of the potter. And he makes of it another vessel
as he will. So he says, Does the potter say
to the clay, hath not the potter power over the clay of the same
lump to make one vessel to honor and another to dishonor? What
if God, willing to show His wrath and make His power known, endured
with much longsuffering, now watch what it says, the vessels
of wrath, fitted, that's an important word, fitted by their own willful,
sinful unbelief and rebellion. fitted by their own corruption,
fitted by their own sin, the vessels of wrath before of old
ordained to this condemnation, but fitted to destruction by
their own sin, and that he might make known the riches of his
glory. Watch it now. On the vessels
of mercy which he had aforeprepared unto glory. Now this is what
I'm saying when I say that God suffered. I'm in God's hands, and you too. And He can do with us exactly
what He will, and He does, always, all the time. He can save me
or damn me, it's up to Him. He can save you or damn you,
it is up to Him. You're in God's hands, God is
not in your hands. I am in God's hands. God is not
in my hands. Second, God, this sovereign God,
is holy. Immaculately holy. The psalmist says in Psalm 119,
holy and reverend is his name. He alone is holy. absolutely and essentially holy. All that's represented in scripture
as being holy, the holy vessels, the holy tabernacle, the holy
temple, all those things were but made holy ceremonially being
pictures of that which God makes holy by his grace. And we who
are gods are made holy by his grace, but he alone is essentially
holy. holy. What's that mean? That
means that God is perfectly holy, all that He is. All that He does
is perfectly holy. And all that He can accept, all
that He can accept, all that He can receive in His holy character
must be holy. Therefore He says, Be ye holy
for I am holy. Let me show you. Back in Psalm
24. Psalm 24. Verse 3. Who shall ascend to the hill
of the Lord? Or who shall stand in His holy
place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart, who hath not
lifted up his soul into vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. Now this
is what God says to Larry Brown and his wife Carol. And this
is what God says to Don Fortner and his wife Shelby. And this
is what God says to you. This is what God says to you.
If you would enter into heaven, if you would enter into heaven,
you've got to have perfectly clean hands, a perfectly pure
heart, having never lifted up your soul to vanity nor sworn
deceitfully. That's what it says. He and he alone who has clean
hands and a pure heart and has never lifted up his soul to vanity
has never been deceitful. He shall receive the blessing
from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation. God says be ye holy For I, the
Lord your God, am holy. And God, this holy, sovereign
God, is just. Inflexibly, absolutely just. Justice and judgment are the
habitation of his throne. The righteous Lord loveth righteousness. Shall not the judge of all the
earth do right, the Almighty will not pervert justice. He
will never do anything contrary to justice. Like it or not, the
true and living God is absolutely sovereign, immaculately holy,
and inflexibly just. Those three facts would absolutely
drive me in despair to utter insanity were it not for this
other fact that I also know. Listen carefully. God is love. This sovereign, holy, just God. This God who by no means shall
clear the guilty. This God who cannot look upon
sin. This God who will not tolerate
evil. This God who must punish every
transgression. This sovereign God in whose hands
we are is love. He delighteth in mercy because
God is love. He is gracious because God is
love. He has no pleasure in the death
of the wicked because he is love. God can never be satisfied with casting men into hell. Should he cast the whole world
into hell, hell would burn on. Justice could never be satisfied
because the Lord has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. But
because God is love, it pleased the Lord to bruise his darling
son place of sinners like you and me that he in strict justice
without bending his law without violating his character might
be just and the justifier of the ungodly so that in Christ
Jesus the Lord God found a way to ransom sinners and that way
is the sacrifice of his darling son. My religion begins with
what I know about God. My religion compels me to acknowledge
and confess what I am. From head to toe, from top to
bottom, from the inside out, see it. See it. That's what I am. That's what
I am. John Newton expressed it better
than I can ever imagine expressing it. He wrote, physician of my
sin sick soul, to thee I bring my case, my raging malady control,
and heal me by thy grace. Pity, Lord, the anguish I endure. See how I mourn in pine, for
never can I hope for cure from any hand but thine. I would disclose
my whole complaint, but where shall I begin? No words of mine
can fully paint that worst distemper sin. It lies not in a single
part, but through my frame is spread. A burning fever in my
heart, a palsy in my head, it makes me deaf and dumb and blind
and impotent and lame and overclouds and fills my mind with folly
fear and shame. Lord, I'm sick. Regard my cry
and set my spirit free. Say, canst thou let a sinner
die who longs to live to thee? I am, as I said, nothing but
sin. But oh, blessed be his name forever
In Christ I am a sinner, forgiven of all sin before God. Here I stand, a man of whom God
says, I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions and
will not remember thy sins. And I fully expect, I do, I fully expect God's holy
hero, Merle Hart, a man with a pure heart, who's never lifted
up his soul to vanity, who's never sworn deceitfully, whose
hands are altogether clean, because Christ has made me clean, free
from sin. He was manifested to take away
our sins, and in Him is no sin. Third, My religion recognizes the preeminence
and glory of the person and work of the Lord Jesus in all things. Let's look at one familiar text.
I just read it to you the other night. Hebrews chapter 1. Hebrews
chapter 1. Our Lord Jesus is the head of
the body of the church, the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,
that in all things he might have the preeminence. Now look at
what that preeminence is. Hebrews 1 verse 1, God who at
sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers
by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his
Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he
made the worlds, who being the brightness of his glory, and
the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the
word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat
down on the right hand of the majesty on high. How can I speak of the glory
of Christ? What is the distinct glory of
our Savior? That which sets him apart and
gives Him all preeminence in all things in heaven and in earth. What is the distinct glory of
our Savior? As the God-man, the only mediator
between God and men, the man Christ Jesus is able to do for
sinners what neither God nor man could do. He's able to do
for sinners what neither God nor man could do. God could not
suffer. Man could not satisfy. But the God-man, being made sin
for us, has both suffered all the fury of God's wrath. He has
suffered all the second death. He has suffered all the hell
of God's wrath at one time. to the full satisfaction of divine
justice so that God has no fury left in him against any sinner
for whom Christ died. God in his strict character as
God could never forgive sin. He could never pretend we didn't
sin. We forgive Sort of. Sort of. We forgive
and we ought to. We ought to. Offenses done to
us. God teach me to be forgiving. To be forgiving. But it's so
hard to forget, isn't it? Man, it's hard to forget. I can forget almost anything
except what I want to forget. Almost anything except what I
want to forget. God says, that he has forgotten our sins. How can that be? We forgive by
acting as though we had not been offended, and rightly so. That's
how we ought to behave. If we forgive someone, we forgive
them because we know what it is to behave just as they behave,
because we've done the same. We're in the same body of flesh.
We forgive someone's offenses By acting like they didn't offend,
not so God. He will never act like you didn't
offend Him. He won't do that. In free salvation
by Biestos, God Almighty has put away your sin. Now honestly, I can't begin to
imagine that, yet alone explain it. But I know that's what the
book teaches. God, by the sacrifice of his
son, says, I will not remember their transgressions against
them forever because he has put them away. Actually, literally,
truly put them away by the sacrifice of his son. Number four, my religion
is the believing, confident commitment of my life to the Christ of Calvary
as my Lord and Savior. A commitment that began 48 years
ago, but a commitment that is demanded
right now as much as ever and must be continual. I know whom I had believed and
I am persuaded that he's able to keep that which I've committed
to him against that day. Faith in Christ is never less
than the commitment of our beings to him. The surrender of our
lives to him, the Lord. Giving up rule of ourselves. Rothbard used to call on folks
to put down your little pop gun. The men stand armed against God
and refuse to bow to Christ. That's the issue. That's the
issue. The issue with men and women about salvation is not
do you want to go to heaven or do you want to go to hell? Everybody
wants to go to heaven. Nobody wants to go to hell. The
issue is surrender to Christ the Lord. through religion, is the surrender
of ourselves to Jesus Christ, everything. If my religion is
true, I have surrendered and am surrendering myself to the
Savior. I trust His blood as my only
atonement, His righteousness as my only righteousness. and
I give myself to him. Take me, Lord, and rule me as
you will. In believer's baptism, we confess that Christ is our
Lord. We were crucified with him. We
died in him. Crucified to the world and the
world to us in him. And we rise with him to walk
in the newness of life. so that everything now is his. And we want it that way. Jephthah said, Lord, give me the victory.
And the first thing comes out of my house, I'll sacrifice it
to you. And when he got home, the news had already preceded
him. And his daughter came out and said, oh, daddy, I've heard
what a victory God gave you. And Jephthah said, oh, my daughter, you don't know what I've done.
And he said, I've lifted my hand to God. I can't go back. I've lifted
my hand to the Lord. I can't go back. It's called
commitment. Fifth, my religion is a living
union with the Son of God. As the vine and the branches
are one. Christ and Don Fortner are one. There again, I'm way above my
head. Head over heels over my head.
But Christ and Don Fortner are one. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not
I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life that I now live
in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me
and gave himself for me. Sixth, my religion produces within
me a principle of sincere love to God and his people. The love of God been shed abroad
in my heart. convincing me of his love for
me, and causing me to love him and his people. Look at James
chapter 1 again, verse 26. 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. James, what do you mean
by that? 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. Pure religion? Pure religion
is that religion that causes a man, causes a woman, to so
surrender to the rule and dominion and example and word and will
of the Lord Jesus Christ that he lives in this world for the
glory of God to serve the good of men's souls all his days. That's our business in this world. Don't speak ill of men, but visit
the fatherless and the widows in their affliction, in their
trouble. Take care of folks in their need. Give yourself to
that. This is true religion, pure religion,
undefiled religion. Everything else is just vain
religion. Amen.