Sounds like I'm already making
an excuse for not doing it though. We're going to be in the book
of James tonight. James chapter 2. The title of my message tonight
is meant to provoke some thought. The title is The Doers of Pure
Religion. And those of us who love sovereign
grace, oftentimes we hear these things that sound like works
and we want to just slow down a little bit. The Lord speaks
this way of being a doer. The doers of pure religion. Aside from the book of Revelation,
I think James is one of the most controversial books in the New
Testament. I think people have horribly
misunderstood it, and people are afraid of it, especially
this second chapter. They've turned it into things
it is not saying. Actually, I'm going to be in
the first chapter tonight. I was in the second chapter Sunday,
so forgive me for that. But they really have been very
afraid of this book. Martin Luther, many of you probably
know, didn't know how to take this book when he was first converted
to Christ and actually wanted to take it and several other
books and kind of set them aside as less than biblical. And I
don't know how he came up with that. But he learned, from what
I've been told, though I couldn't really find any way to verify
it, that he learned his lesson. So we ought not to ever approach
the Word of God that way. If we don't understand something,
it tells us in James what to do. Be patient. Ask God to give
you help and he'll bring you help. So I think that the main
thing we want to do tonight is not not go to any Bible book
of the Bible, especially the Revelation and James, and try
to especially figure it out in one setting. But James, I think
the biggest issue I find with dealing with the book of James
is really settling down on who the author is of James. Do you know there's a dispute
of which James wrote the book? Is it the apostle? Is it the
brother? Is it some other James? If we
just settle this issue, I think we can move along with with it.
The Holy Spirit wrote it. Who cares what label he put on
it? He sat down at his desk, he took out a pen, the pen was
labeled James, and he wrote it. And if we can go at it that way,
we won't get so upset when we read things that look like they're
contrary to what Paul was teaching, for example, in Romans 3 and
4, where James, if you just read it, And you weren't studying
it and really paying attention a lot to what it said in chapter
one, you would think James was absolutely 100% contrary. And he's just not. He's just
not at all. I think if we look at James in
the way it's written, it's got a lot of Old Testament language
in it. And by design, the Lord wrote
it that way. And I'm not sure why, but it's
a tremendous, tremendous blessing. So, let's look at James 1, verse
19, and I'll read through the end of the chapter. He says, Wherefore, my brethren,
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 superfluidity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the
engrafted word which is able to save your souls. But be ye
doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own self. For if any be a hearer of the
word, and not a doer, he is like a man beholding his natural face
in the 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 seems 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 and their afflictions and to keep
himself unspotted from the world. Now, especially that last chapter
of that last verse. I want to be very careful and
how I approach this, because I don't want to. Lots of people
have taken that 100% literal. And they love the Lord. And they
go and do wonderful things for orphans and widows. And I would
never want to ever discourage people from doing that sort of
thing. And then others make that into the actual gospel, which
is a really bad thing to do. Because what is that? It's works. It's pure works.
I used to go to a church. And I'm sure there were brethren
in there. But there was sure a whole lot of works preaching
going on. And people would walk around
with these t-shirts that say, Adoption is the Gospel. What they did not mean, it wasn't
our adoption through the beloved Lord Jesus Christ that we would
be the sons of God. That's not what they talked about.
Because that is in part the Gospel for sure. What they meant is
physical adoption was the Gospel. I don't know how anybody's ever
converted by physically adopting a child, but they didn't explain
that part. So we've got to be really good
students, and if we eliminate any other author than the Holy
Spirit, we've stumbled at the start. Isn't that right? Who wrote this letter? This is
the words of the Holy Spirit. Now, if we were to look at that,
especially, I'm going to start with the 27th verse first. If we were to look at that verse
and look at that language, isn't it very similar to the way Isaiah
and Jeremiah and the psalmist write? Don't you see these kind
of words lingered all around the Old Testament? Well, you
do. That's because the Holy Spirit
wrote that as well, and he uses the same kind of language. I'm
going to break down some of these words. First, let's look at this
visit. What true religion is pure, undefiled
religion is visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction.
That's what it says. That's what the Holy Spirit has
revealed. Visit, first off, means far more than just hanging out.
You visited a lot of people for Thanksgiving. I know that. You
hung out with them and you probably enjoyed yourself. But that's
not this visit. That's not what he's speaking
about. This isn't just to check in on someone. In the Greek,
it means to look out or to select. In Hebrelistically, it means
this. To look upon one in order to
benefit or provide for them. It's to benefit them. And I love
that word. I love the benefits that that
those who are fatherless and orphaned and widowed receive. Now, this word fatherless is
an interesting word. It is the word where we get orphaned
from, but the meaning of this is speaking of the desolate,
or the desperate, or those who have no comfort. It is one who
has no comfort. So it's much more than just being
a physical orphan. You are without a father. Now, the widow literally is this,
one without a husband. There's nowhere to go with that
one. That's what it means. But this is speaking about a
husbandless woman. One that has no husband. And when are they visited? It is in their affliction. It is in their affliction that
they're visited. Affliction is tribulation, distress. But the word is speaking about
an internal pressure, an internal pressure that causes someone
to feel confined or restricted to the point where they are without
options. Such as being found into a deep,
deep ditch that you could not ever get out of. Such as what
the law does to every man that God calls us to be born again.
Causing them to see there's no way out. I am desperate. I am without a father. I am without
a husband. I am afflicted. I am surrounded. God's law has put me in this
place. That's who we're talking about.
That's exactly who we're speaking about. In Jeremiah, excuse me,
listen to this from Psalm 25. You don't need to turn there.
This is what the Lord says in Psalm 25. Turn thee unto me and
have mercy upon me, for I am desolate and afflicted. The troubles
of my heart are enlarged. Oh, bring thou me out of my distresses. Look upon my affliction and my
pain and forgive all my sins. It's the same kind of language
we're seeing from the psalmist. Listen to Jeremiah's book on
grief and sorrow over sin. We call it Lamentations, but
in chapter five, this is what he says. Remember, O Lord, what
has come upon us. Consider and behold our reproach. Our inheritance is turned to
strangers, our house to aliens. We are orphans and fatherless. Our mothers are as widows. Now, was he speaking that like
he was exactly like they were literally orphans? Or is he speaking
of something spiritual? You're a spiritual orphan before
the Lord comes. You are a spiritual orphan. This
is really what the Holy Spirit is talking about. And I'm going
to prove it here shortly. What are they lamenting in the
book of Lamentations? But there's sinfulness, our sinfulness
towards a good and holy God. Real religion starts right here,
right here. You have no saving relationship
apart from God. You have, honestly, before you
come to him, you don't have this. You are overwhelmed when you
are born again and brought before the law with your sin to the
point where you feel an absolute distance between you and God. No relationship whatsoever other
than this, you have sinned against God. You sinned against him. You are without a father. At
that point, he feels more like an enemy that's got you trapped.
Like he is your enemy. He's also this, as you're hemmed
in on all sides. He's no husband to you at this
point. You're a desperate, desperate widow without any means of provisions. There's no benefits coming your
way. You are left without hope. And that's who the Lord then
visits. Your sin has left you so desolate. And again, there is absolutely
no benefits whatsoever. We get to the point where we
have no hope in us. Yet then the Lord comes. He begins
to show us the benefits of Christ. And the greatest of these benefits
is found right here in this second part. Remember what this definition
is. In verse 27, it says, pure religion
and undefiled before God and the Father is to visit the fatherless
and widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted
from the world. To keep means to preserve it,
to be held in custody. This is unspotted, is obviously
spotless, having no blemish, no marks, completely acceptable
without reproach. The word world is cosmos. It means the world, but it's
also the same word where we get our cosmetics from. It's the same word. It's cosmetics
cover up the things that are covering up the spots. See, You and I are under order
if we're outside of Christ to keep ourselves unspotted from
the world. And what do we do? All of us
have probably come out of some form of dead religion or another.
We did exactly the opposite and we used our dead religion to
cover up our spots. The cosmos, the cosmetics that
we use were just simply covering up spots. But we have to have
this pure religion is to keep ourselves unspotted from the
world. And because of our condition
of being fatherless, orphaned, widowed, sinners, full of leprosy,
we've gotten to the point where it's oozing. There's no way to
cover this up. Could you imagine a leper trying
to put on some makeup to cover up their spots? See, that's what
the Lord brought us to. A place where we were so broken
and desperate. Even this false religion we've
been doing has no hope in it. He's brought us to the point
where we begin to smell ourselves and all the sin that has overwhelmed
us. What we need is to be covered
by this Himself. This Himself. Remember, it says
to keep himself unspotted from the world. That's not you. That's not me. Our religion stinketh. It is not pure. It is not undefiled. There's only one person this
points to. Pure religion is Christ himself. This is what Hebrews 1 says.
If you want to turn there and read along with me, you can. I'll also turn to Colossians. We need the incarnate Son himself. God, verse one of Hebrews one,
God, who at sundry times and in diverse manners spoke in the
times 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 in the brightness
of his glory and the expressed image of his person, and upholding
all things by the word of the power, when he had by himself
purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty
on high." Himself. He'd need us. Himself. Colossians 1 verse 16 says the
same thing. The same thing, and I'm going
to read a few verses from Colossians 1. For by him were all things created
that are in heaven, that are in earth, visible and invisible,
whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers,
all things were created by him and for him. And he is before
all things and by him all things consist. And he is the head of
the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn
from the dead, that in all things he might have preeminence. For
it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell,
and having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him
to reconcile all things unto himself. By Him, I say, whether
they be things in earth or things in heaven, Himself." See, true
religion is exactly what took place. We're celebrating this
time of the year. Some people refer to it as Christmas. Some people refer to it as the
Day of Emmanuel. Far better name for it. Exactly
what it is the day of visitation from the Lord. Listen to what
Zacharias says. I'm just going to read a very
just one verse. This is what Zacharias said when
he was filled with the Holy Ghost. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel. He hath visited and redeemed
his people. You have to have that visitation.
You have to have Him come and redeem you as a husband. And be a father unto you. You have to have that. For that's
what He is. He is the Father to the orphans
who are spiritually orphaned. He is the Husband to those who
are spiritual widows. He's got the benefits for you. In Isaiah 40. I love this verse
two, verse one and two. This word. Comfort. Has everything to do with. Fatherly
comfort. Says comfort you comfort you,
my people sayeth your God speak you comfort comfortably to Jerusalem
and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished. that her iniquity
is pardoned, for she hath received of the Lord's hand double for
all her sins." Speaking comfortably means to speak as a father to
an adopted orphan or as the loving husband to which was once a rejected
widow. This is pure religion. Pure religion
isn't your works. Pure religion isn't the things
you do. Never is it a bad idea to help
out widows. Never is it a bad idea to help
out orphans. If they need help, you help them.
But that's not pure religion, brothers and sisters. That's
where we fall down when we go and read these things and don't
understand who it is that wrote it. It's the same Holy Spirit
that wrote these verses that I just read from the Old Testament,
which sound exactly the same. They sound very similar. What
is the rightful response, though, to such a God as this that came
and saved the destitute fatherless and the ones without a husband,
the sinners? The Word here says to be a doer. Be a doer of the Word. And going back up into the 22nd
verse of James chapter one. But be ye 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 it
himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgets what manner
of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect
law of liberty, and continue therein, he being not a forgetful
hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in
his deed." A doer of the word. That is not
foreign to the New Testament. That phrase is not foreign to
us. It should not be foreign to us.
We should be able to recognize and understand exactly where
that came from. It's the same idea, the same
concept being put forth by Jesus Christ in John chapter three. If you want to turn over there
and read it, it's the same language. It's not works, brother. Well,
it's not our works, brothers and sisters, it's his work. Be
a doer of His work. John 3, verse 16, For God so
loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For
God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but
that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on
him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned
already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only
begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation.
That light has come into the world, and men love darkness
rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one
that doeth evil hateth the light, neither come to the light, lest
his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his
deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God. It's really the same language
we just read in James. If you're going to do truth,
what are you going to do? You're going to go to that mirror
of the law. It's going to reflect back to
you that you're a filthy, wicked sinner, that there's no hope
in you, and you're not going to walk away from that mirror
and change your mind about yourself. See, that's doing the truth.
Doing the truth means this. I'm going to believe the words
of my Lord, Jesus Christ, that He came into this world to save
me because I need it desperately. That's being a doer of the word. Is there another doer of the
word? If you've got another way of doing the word, you've got
a false gospel, plain and simple. Don't fall for that sort of thing.
Don't read James and think this is all works. It's all works.
Well, it is, but it's his work. It's his work that that encourages
us to do things for other people if that's what the Lord has you
to do. But wouldn't it be horrendous? If you had no means of helping
orphans or widows, wouldn't it be horrendous to think that's
the gospel? And how tortured you might be?
That's not what the Holy Spirit is saying. Not at all. We approach this with the same
idea as reading through so much of the Old Testament, which is
in shadows and types. It's the same concept. These
things are right before our eyes and we should know them. Consider
what it means to looketh into the perfect law of liberty. That
means to look, keep looking and don't stop looking. What's the
perfect law of liberty? Well, if it brings liberty and
it does so perfectly and it's a law, what is that law? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and now shall be saved. And then it adds this in case
you missed it. Continue with therein. The gospel
is not a one time proclamation that you believe and then off
you go. It's an ongoing proclamation that you believe because. Though you are cured from leprosy. Though you are eternally saved,
you know darn well you still deal with all those problems.
You're still dealing with them. The consequences of them, they're
gone, but they're still there trying to trip you up every waking
second of the day, are they not? We are sinners. That's the only
ones that God comes to visit. Sinners. We are without hope.
We have no father apart from God. We have no husband apart
from Christ. He is all our everything in eternal
matters. That's all James is saying. Be
ye a doer of the word. You've got to look unto that
perfect law of liberty and run to Christ. It's a simple, simple
statement. If we just pay attention to what
these words say and remember all this. See, if I were to take
James and say, what is James all about? This is what I would
say. Continuing in the faith. The proof and evidence that you're
continuing in the faith. And if we look again at the very
first chapter here, he talks all about this patience that
we're to have. Brethren, count it all joy when
you fall into diverse temptations, knowing that the trying of your
faith worketh patience. It's what he's speaking of. It's
what he's speaking of. What are you called today to
do? Is there a commandment God gives
you right now to do? Believe. So don't stop doing that. Don't stop doing it. Do you know
if you came across and this church doesn't do this, and I don't
really know any godly church that would do it. But it could
happen to some individual that got down and took his eyes off
the Lord that he would walk right past a brother who was in need
and didn't help him. And said the I'll pray for you
thing, because that's what James is speaking about in this book.
You we understand a little history behind it. There was such a I guess it was the societal issues
in the early church with the Jews who may have been converted
to Christ and the obvious very poor people. And there was so
many problems in this. James is just telling us, do
not allow these issues to overwhelm you. Remember who you are and
keep doing this truth. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. We have the same issues as they
did in the early church. Maybe they're labeled differently
now, but we are called to be people who have our eyes on Christ
and to love one another, quite frankly. And that's what we're
called to do. Amen. I don't want to take very
long. It's 715 and I know you guys
are tired. I can see it. I know I'm tired.
So I hope this was a blessing to you. I know it was short,
but I'm going to go ahead and pray and we'll dismiss. Father
in heaven, I thank you for tonight. I thank you for the blessing
of your word. Lord, help us that we would just simply wait upon
you, be patient and wait, Lord. The day is coming when you will
absolutely take us out of this world. And we're looking so forward
to that day, Lord, when we put off all these sinful thoughts
and sinful ways and the pains and the aches. Looking so very
forward to that day that we are all together in heaven, Lord.
But in the meantime, please help us to continue pressing into
your word, pressing into the things you have for us, Lord,
and going through these trials and tribulations, Lord, knowing
that the end of these things is always for our good. Lord,
help us in these things. We pray this in Christ's name.
Amen. So which button? Stop.