James 1

James 1:1-4

THE TO James 1:1-16. IN beginning with you this morning a study of the Epistle of James, permit a few remarks by way of introduction. The question of who this James was has been debated in all centuries, save possibly the first and second, but by a somewhat careful study of the Scriptures, I am convinced that it was James, the brother of the Lord. It could scarcely have been James, the son of Zebedee, for he was beheaded A. D. 44, if not earlier. James, the son of Alphaeus, is mentioned as among the Apostles at the time when “the brethren of our Lord were unbelievers and yet, after the resurrection of Jesus, it is perfectly evident that “James the Lord’s brother”, became a convert to His Deity. Paul, in writing to the Galatians, speaks of the time when he “went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days.

But other of the Apostles saw I none, save James the Lord’s brother” (Galatians 1:18-19).The internal evidences clearly indicate that this Epistle was penned by this James who was Jesus’ brother according to the flesh. The character of the man is one with that of him who addressed the Council at Jerusalem, saying, “Men and brethren, hearken unto me”, and then proceeded with such a sane and judicious presentation of the whole subject of Gentile church-membership as to secure unto himself the title of “James, The Just”, and brought the contention to an end by a deliverance which “pleased” at once “the Apostles and elders, with the whole Church”,His kinship with the Jews is expressed in his salutation to the twelve tribes, which are of the dispersion. His Christian spirit is voiced in the humility which owns a blood-brother as “The Lord Jesus Christ”; while his familiarity with the thought of the Son of God is breathed in every sentence of the Sacred Book, and finds a special significance in his expectation of Christ’s Return.The date of the Epistle is probably about A. D. 60; the purpose of it is the instruction and inspiration of the Hebrew Christians; while its central theme is, The Practical Tests of Professed Faith.Following the chapter divisions I have chosen six themes, suggested by the study of the Epistles: The Temptations to Discouragement; The Temptations to Partiality; The Temptations of the Tongue; The Temptations of Worldly Lusts; The Temptations of Oppression; and the Temptations of Swearing and Sickness.To the first of these we now invite your attention. No sooner has the author finished his salutation than he springs to the expression of his ardent desire, and by voicing it unveilsTHE SECRET OF JOY There are at least three fundamentals in which James finds this blessed secret;First, In the true philosophy of trial.“My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations” (the word translated “temptations” is better translated “trials”); “Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. “But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing” (James 1:2-4). The man who thinks to pass through life without trials understands neither his own nature nor yet the environments in which he is placed. The man who attempts to be indifferent to trials may become a Stoic, which no more ends them than does the “illusion theory” of the Christian Scientist. The man who regards his trials as an unmistakable mark of his superiority indulges a vain conceit. The man who finds natural pleasure in trials is commonly a spoiled child whose spanking, at the proper season, was sadly neglected.James is too sane to call upon us to rejoice in trial for its own sake. As Joseph Parker exhorts, “Let us not break off our studies at a semicolon.” The Apostle never would have written this second verse if he had been compelled to end it with a period. He was not Spartan enough to suppose that the hardy endurance of pain was a virtue per se.

But he did know that in the school of Christ it could be made to prove one’s faith, create in one patience, and through patience accomplish in one, complete moral and Christian manhood.If ever history has attested any truth it certainly has put this one past dispute, namely, that trials tend to strengthen character, and fires to refine it. Go ask the oak when it took its deepest root and developed its best fiber!

It will tell you that the peaceful days of summer, gracious as they were to its growth, contributed ne’er so much as the March winds and winter storms. Go ask the man who stands among his fellows as a stalwart when he stored up his strength, and he will answer.“It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth” (Lamentations 3:27). The world has seldom known a hero whose early life has not experienced the greatest hardships. James is only trying to have these exiled men, who, by becoming Christians, had been made outcasts from Israel, thereby suffering dual hardships, see the meaning of it all, the Divine purpose of it all, namely, the proving of faith, the working in them of patience, the perfection of Christian manhood.Paul, remembering the severity of a certain Epistle and the fact that it had cut deeply those to whom he addressed it, says: “Now I rejoice, not that ye were made sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance” (2 Corinthians 7:9). And the joy of our trials is not in the trials themselves, but in the results which they accomplish for character.Some years since, James Chalmers of New Guinea, a recent martyr to the faith, was speaking in Exeter Hall concerning his work among savages, and there he uttered these words: “Recall the twenty-one years. Give me back all its experiences; give me its shipwrecks; give me its standings in the face of death; give it me, surrounded with savages—spears and clubs in hand; yea, with the spears flying about me, with the club knocking me to the ground; give it me back, and I will still be your missionary.” Who believes that a life of ease, destitute of the sufferings and rid of the hardships such as Judson endured, could ever have accomplished a character to match his; or a life of complaisance at home could make a name worthy to be mentioned with Livingstone? Great soldiers are not made in the barracks, but on the battlefield. I think Spurgeon was right when he said, “Mr. Great-heart had not been worthy his name had he not once been Mr. Great-trouble.” As we interpret James, therefore, he has something better than words of condolence for the suffering; something better than sympathy even for those in sore trial. He calls them to good cheer.

He knows that the dark day teaches men prudence. He knows that the starless night reveals to men the value of the Word, “A lamp unto [their] feet”. He knows that a breaking heart drives them to the bosom of Jesus; and in it all he sees their good accomplished and discovers the true philosophy of trial.But how else does the Apostle unveil this secret of Christian joy?In understanding the source of wisdom. He knew that men would answer him by saying, “We are not wise enough to know just when our trials are profitable, to see just what trials are for the proving of the faith, to understand how much patience must be exercised to perfect manhood.” And so he answers the question before they ask it— you do not need to be in ignorance concerning any one or all of these points!“If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. “But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. “For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. “A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.”. The man who really wants wisdom, the man who has an abiding desire for it—a desire that will be voiced today and again the next day, and so on until it comes—the man who believes God’s promise to give it, need not condition his request.There are some prayers that ought to be preceded by an “If”, “If it is Thy will, grant.” “If Thou seest, give.” But the prayer for wisdom is not one of them. The only condition there is that of the human mind and heart; not with the Divine mind or will. Oh, that people would understand it! Unconverted men come to me sometimes saying, “If God would only show us what He wants us to do we would do it.” Professed Christians, who have reached some parting of the ways, affirm, “If only the Lord would point out which path, we would take it.” That is a strange speech! God has sworn to grant wisdom to them that feel their need of it and stands ready to act upon His counsel: “If any man will do His will, he shall know”. There is scarce a prayer in all the Scriptures with which God is more pleased than He was with Solomon’s prayer for wisdom.

The all-wise God takes no pleasure in fools; He finds no solace in our stumblings; He gets no glory out of our ignorance.Henry Drummond has told us what to do when we come to the cross-roads and know not which direction to take. He says, “At that point I read the Book, and I found out that to surrender to His will was to walk in the right path, whether my steps were in the class-room or on the street.” It matters little whether we go to foreign lands or stay at home; but much as to whether we walk the way He has chosen.

The “‘49rs”, who wanted riches, went to the gold fields of California. They were wise, for gold was there and they got it. The men of later times, animated by the same desire, endured all possible privations in their journey to the Klondike. Had you met them—weary and sorefooted, picking their way across the treacherous ice-fields—and asked, “Why do you go?”; if they had answered truthfully, they would have said, “Gold!”And the men who want wisdom, whose desire is abiding, and whose spirits are stable, they will seek out God, and God will give.Oh, the joy of it! I find nothing that makes trials so easy to bear as this sure promise of the Word. What if it is dark about me! God has pledged to guide me if I ask Him. What if there are obstacles hard to overcome!

God has sworn to instruct me as to how. What if there are battles to be fought! He will show us how to plan the campaign and arrange our forces. I tell you that when you undertake anything that is really worth your time, and men come to you to recite all the difficulties involved, all the dangers to be encountered, all the possible mistakes one may make, it is gracious to be able to admit it all, and yet to answer, “No cause for discouragement since God has declared that ‘If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him’”But James mentions a third fundamental in the secret of Christian joy.It consists in properly interpreting one’s station.“Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted”. I wonder if, when James penned this, he was not thinking of what his notable Brother Jesus had said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven”; and again, “Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth”. Oh, my friends, wherever the humble man is found, God is exalting him. Why then should he not glory? “But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away”.Here the Apostle mentions one of the most difficult things; and yet, like all other difficult things, a thing possible in Christ, namely, that the rich man, who has been brought down from the enjoyment of his luxuries and the honor of his prosperity, even to the grave, that he should rejoice in it. History tells us how some of the wealthy men of the past have longed to part with their money if only they could purchase a few hours of life; and Jesus Himself recited the dismal end of him who spent his evening in rejoicing over the fruitfulness of his farms, and proudly planning bigger barns, only to face death before the morning dawned. But it is possible for the rich man whose heart is right with God to come down to death, consciously fade as the leaf, and yet, with an eye upon his better treasures, rejoice.I have known a man who had a comfortable home on earth, surrounded by what his poorer neighbors would have called luxuries of appointments, to experience a sickness, in the darkest hour of which he got a glimpse of Heaven, and he was never again content to remain on earth. He believed that the day of his death would be the time when he would come into his true riches, and hailed it with delight.Ah, men and women, it is possible; certainly it is possible for one to be so wedded to God and holiness and the hereafter that he will not regard the loss of riches sustained in “going Home” as anything that can detract from his joy.

But if such is to be our experience we must “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world”. “The world passeth away, and the lust thereof”. Our best and truest love must find its object in our Lord. John Bacon, the sculptor, dictated his own epitaph. It reads after this manner: “What I was as an artist seemed to me of importance while I lived; but what I am as a believer in Jesus Christ, is the only matter of importance to me now.”What you own here may be a matter of importance to you today; but tomorrow you will be leaving it. The visions of earth will be fading before your closing eyes; the winding stair to the eternal world will be breaking upon a new vision. The thing of importance will be, not what treasures you leave here, but what treasures you have there.Our author passes from the Secret of Christian Joy toTHE TRUE SOURCE OF It is one thing to see that God makes “all things work together for good”; it is altogether another thing to charge God with being the Author of all —both good and bad. How the Apostle here meets much of what we hear in our own time! Almost universally men charge sickness—the fruit of sin— to God. And once in a while we meet a man or a woman who will charge the root—sin itself—to God. James objects.“Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He my man: “But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. “Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death”. Three things the Apostle makes clear.First, God is not the author of temptation. People say, See how that trial brought out his good; see how the death of his little baby turned him from drink; see how the long sickness recovered him from backsliding; see how the discovery of her infidelity produced true repentance and a return in love to her husband and home. God brought it upon them to work out His own will. To all of which James says, “Hold; I dissent! My God is not the author of evil. Death is an enemy; sickness is a fruit of sin; the infidelity of a wife is the surrender to the adversary; let no man charge God with these things; He is not the author of evil.

He tempteth no man to evil.”Oh that people would see this distinction in Scripture. God makes “all things work together for good to them that love Him” (Romans 8:28), but we only malign His character when we charge Him with being the author of all things.

By such processes of reasoning we build a portico to the houses in which they dwell who throw the whole responsibility for sin upon God, saying, “Didn’t God make Adam capable of sin? Didn’t He know in advance that Adam would fall? Then, was not God to blame? Didn’t God establish the law of heredity so that one should bring forth after his kind; and did not my mother conceive me in iniquity, and was I not shapen in sin? Am I to be blamed, therefore, for doing that which it is natural to do? Was I not born in certain environments: and has not my experience been that of unavoidable evil associations?

And if I have partaken of their conduct, can I be held responsible, since my life is appointed of the Lord?”Such are the processes by which men seek to escape self-condemnation. James meets such fallacious arguments with this clear affirmation concerning the character of God. “Be it known unto you,” he says, “that God is neither a sinner, nor a tempter.” However difficult the problem of sin, you must find a solution for it elsewhere than in Him; and to charge God with the authorship of sin is to forget that “God is love”.

To charge God with evil things that come upon us in this world is to forget that “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above”, and that there is no variation in the character of His gifts, nor change in His customs. To charge God with being the author of evil, or evil things, is to preach an infidelity that has floored the faith of hundreds, and filled the world with philosophies about the Father which have turned men from His presence, who is Light, and torn them from the bosom of Him who is Love.The second thing which James makes clear is this:The responsibility of temptation is with one’s self.“Every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed”. If one would know the genesis of evil let him look through the Apostle’s eyes. Ours is a threefold nature—body, soul, and spirit. Christian Scientists say, Body can’t sin; no soul can sin. Paul found a filthy spring:“For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing” (Romans 7:18). “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, “Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like” (Galatians 5:19-21). And Paul was in perfect accord with the great Master, who affirmed,“For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: “These are the things which defile a man” (Matthew 15:19-20). Self-defiled! Away yonder near the seas you will dip your cup into the water and lo, a collection of filth. You say, “Who would have supposed the fountain of the Mississippi so impure?” Someone objects and says, “I have been to Lake Itasca and its waters are limpid, clear, and sweet, and isn’t that the source of the Mississippi?” Ah, yes, but this river, rising there, has had to take its way by towns, through the cities where men dwell and they have turned their sewers into its bosom, and the impure liquid, lying at the foot of the street in New Orleans, is a long remove from the clear waters of the great lake in northern Minnesota.Ah; I would like to have seen Adam when he came from the hand of God; and I would like to have known the life which came fresh from the hand of God before men had drained their passions into it, and defiled it, and poisoned it.There is nothing to be gained, beloved, by this attempt to shift our sins. Even though we propose to put them to the charge of the devil, there is nothing gained. We had better face the great fact of personal responsibility, and remember that even when the tempter came and laid his enticing plans before us, as he laid them before Jesus in the wilderness, that even there God made a way of escape, had we been willing to walk in it. We had better recall His Word when it declares: “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).

No man ever yet ceased from his sinning, or even loathed his own conduct as he ought, until he saw that he was the arbiter of his own destiny, the author of his own course, the one to whom the whole responsibility of life was laid, and upon whom God will yet call to give an account of the deeds done in the body.But James has not finished as yet! He has another note to sound.The victory of sin is the soul’s doom.“But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. “Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death”. The figure is that of the harlot, who would draw you away from more holy surroundings, and entice you to the place propitious for iniquity, and lead you into the indulgence of lust, and bear you the black-faced child of death. It is an awful figure; yet it in no wise exceeds the fact. An editor in Duluth, stung to madness by a sermon on “Playing the Fool”, in an article five columns long resents the suggestion that we are great sinners. No intelligent man reading it will call into question that his conduct came home to him; that his own picture was flashed into his eyes as when one stands before a mirror; and, closing them, he began to throw dirt to be rid of the apparition. But it is a vain endeavor! Better let the great Apostle James teach us; better listen to the word of warning while the place of repentance may be found; better turn our backs upon evil associates, keep our feet from forbidden paths, refuse to join the circle of the sinful, or even to participate in questionable customs, lest, being led away and enticed, we yet find the fruit of our own conduct in the black form of death.A writer declares that in the West Indies there is found a tree called the manchaneel.

It is extremely attractive in appearance and produces an apple resembling the golden pippin. This fruit is fragrant to the smell, tempting to the eye, but to eat it is death.

So poisonous is the tree that if a drop of sap fall upon the skin it blisters with the severest pain. The Indians dip their arrows in it that they may send their enemies to the grave. Such, indeed, is the character of sin—it “bringeth forth death”. Look at its work in the shrivelled-skinned miser; behold its effect in the liquor-bloated; look upon its face in the wrinkled, painted woman of the street; listen to the wail of its victims as Christ draws up the cover from the pit, and know what death is. James says, ‘It is the fruit of sin.’Ah, beloved, it were a cruel work to tell men about the manchaneel of the West Indies if one could not follow it with the report of the white-wood, the juices of which are an antidote to the awful poison of the former. And I should cease to speak of sin could I not mention also, in the same breath, Jesus, whose Blood cleanseth us from all iniquity. For lack of time I cannot finish this chapter today, but let not my last words be of sin and death, for when James shall have ended his Epistle he will be sounding the better terms— “Christ!” “Life!”

James 1:6

FITS OF James 1:6. I WANT to talk to you this morning on “Wavering”. James, the most practical of the Apostles, thought it worth his while to write on that subject, and since the world is not yet cured of the failing, it is my duty as a minister to speak of the same. One purpose that a preacher must ever have in all his public addresses is the improvement of men.Henry Drummond was correct in saying, “The immediate need of the world at this moment is not more of us, but a better brand of us.” To secure ten men of an improved type would be better than if we had ten thousand more of the average Christians distributed over the world. Whenever that man of an improved type appears, and wherever, he will not be a moral and spiritual invertebrate, but will be possessed with sufficient backbone to assume a position and hold it against all odds, whether of earth or hell. The only man before whom we. stand in admiration is the man who thinks and acts for himself, and thinks and acts as only a true man can. We may not agree with his opinions; we may radically hate them, but to him we are compelled to pay the highest possible compliment.Wendell Philipps spoke at a time and in a way that excited no sort of sympathy and stirred all possible antagonism, and who now so untaught or prejudiced as not to name him as a hero, possessed of the noblest martyr spirit. It need not be said that we need a race of the Philipps’ sort, but we all know that those who wear his mantle of courage, over a tender heart, are the ones whose death the world can least afford. “For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed”.SOME TO FITS OF First of all—They argue weakness and effect failure. Go down to the seashore when a storm is brewing on its waters. Watch that storm until it breaks in fury over all and sends the great mountains of water rolling toward the shore as if they intend to drown the land, or rolling out to sea, as if they would pile themselves up into a liquid Matterhorn at its center, and see the vessels lying in harbor. Those that are anchored only sway to and fro with each throb of the ocean’s heart and are safe, but if any snap her chords and go to sea before the wind, she becomes at once a plaything in the fingers of the elements and all her boasted strength fades into weakness as she is driven by the wind and tossed.So, no matter how excellent his physique, no matter how splendid his mental furnishing, that man who is “unstable in all his ways”, who runs with popular tides, as wild vessels do with the wind, is lacking in mental anchorage and can excite no other than our pity, at best, if indeed we suppress our contempt.A man with a mind of his own is what the world needs; not one who is a mule in stubbornness, or a peacock in vanity; but one who doesn’t have to inquire of his neighbors to learn how he dare think. In the country neighborhood where I was brought up, there lived a man who was quite a gentleman in his deportment. He was so far from being ignorant that few were better read.

And yet, when questions came up over which the neighbors were divided—questions of local interest, questions of school government, questions of church concern— you never could get an opinion from him until he had consulted two wealthier men who lived on either side of him. If they agreed, he was solid as a rock in his notion; if they disagreed, he was undecided and his opinions vacillated between theirs, tipping most in the direction of that friend who happened to be holding conversation with him.

It came to be a great joke at last. If you want to know what B thinks, get the mind of A and C. If they agree, you know just where he stands; if they don’t, put him midway between and he will never move, save to teeter. Even the small boys of that district made a practice of speaking his name with contempt.To meet such men reminds one of the politician who in a western state had delivered himself of an eloquent oration, setting forth his views touching the questions of that local campaign. When he was finishing his peroration he said: “There, gentlemen, are my opinions as I am a candidate and an honest man! But if they don’t suit you, only let me know and I will change them until they do!” He got elected, for that principle is the play of politicians, but it also is the part of fools.The man who does not think for himself cannot act for himself.

Vacillate in mind and your morals are as shifting as a stormy sea. That is the reason that so many men in this world are subject to the caprice of bad company.

A while ago a man whose besetting sin is intemperance told me that he knew what was right when alone, but when his drinking chums came around they always persuaded, ridiculed, and cajoled until he had neither mind nor morals left, and so before he knew it, he was at the cups or in the gutter. We hardly know how to feel toward such men. To spurn them is only to drive them to greater shame; to pity them is in a measure to condone their sins; and so it has seemed it only remains to pray for them that God would give them brains enough to see the right and moral backbone enough to do it, despite all the possible persuasions of unprincipled and scheming fellows.We need generations of teetotalers who could defend sobriety as did an Irishman of whom I read. He had just signed a card promising to leave all intoxicants severely alone. His fellow-laborer said to him: “And so Pat, ye’ve taken the teetotal pledge, hev ye?” “Indeed I hev and I’m not ashamed of it aither,” was his ready reply. “But did not Paul tell Timothy to take a little wine for his stomach’s sake?” said the dram-drinker. “So he dade,” answered the teetotaler, “but my name is not Timoty and there is nothin the mather with me stomach.” Brains and backbone will beat the Keely Cure.People often excuse weak brothers from fault by saying, “O, he is so good-hearted and so easily influenced that he can’t say ‘no’.” That is only another way of saying, “Mentally he is inferior, and his moral vertebrae is but a gristle at best.” Such a man can never succeed until God by His Spirit shall regenerate him and fill his mind and heart with that Divine element of eternal firmness.We all remember how the gallant southern general, Jackson, got his honored title. It was on the day of the Battle of Manassas at 11 A. M. when Brigadier-General Bee was trying to rally his troops in the rear of the Robinson house, that Jackson drew: up his line in a copse of small pines.

When the battle began Bee’s men broke into disorder, and after trying several times to recall them, Bee called out, “Rally, men, rally! See Jackson’s brigade standing there like a stone wall!”Such men never fall into the enemy’s power.

While they live they do every battle with bravery, and when they die, it is not in the enemy’s prison-house, but in the arms of friends. To waver in the moral battles of life makes our eventual defeat just as certain as was that of disorganized and retreating troops in the hour of war, and it is more— a sin.Fits of wavering disgrace and degrade the man.When James wrote, “A double minded man is unstable in all his ways”, he meant to so stigmatize that character that no Christian should ever emulate it. In reading history, whether sacred or profane, those characters that were best known for lack of fixed purpose are the ones who have brought the blush to our cheeks that divinely endowed life could ever be so irresolute and unmanly.You have seen copies of the famous painting, “Christ Before Pilate,” and the longer you study that work of art, the more certainly you will see in it the lesson that Dr. William Taylor has declared: “Pilate in the picture is its distinctive excellence. Here is a fit representative of the Roman Empire; massive in frame, powerful in intellect, strong in will, not usually wanting in decision, and commonly not troubled with many scruples; but he is perplexed now. On his face is an expression of mingled annoyance, humiliation, and reluctance.

He never so wished to do right as he does now, and yet he feels himself drifting on helplessly to do the wrong, and despises himself for his own weakness. He has come to the grand opportunity of his life, but he has come to it fettered by the misdeeds of the past, and so he fails to rise to the occasion.

That is the sermon of this picture. Let every young reader resolve as he looks at it, that he will not unfit himself for the critical occasions of life by the evil deeds of today.”It takes correct moral habits to make men of the moral type, and when men sacrifice morals they have cut the anchor-lines of life, and drifting and wavering must result. Why is it that Moses’ name will ever be loved despite all the possible fires of criticism, all the undermining work of infidels? Because it belongs to us as men, to admire such action as Hebrews records of him in saying:“By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; “Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; “Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt? (Hebrews 11:24-26). So long as men admire LaFayette for the assistance rendered the oppressed Colonists, and Abraham Lincoln for setting the Negro free, just so long will they admire Moses and love him above them all, because to do what he did was at a greater personal cost, and discovered that fixedness of purpose that is sanctified and full of soul.Why do we admire Joseph so much? Because in the midst of the moral tempests that surged about ‘him, he stood as unmoved as a stone whose foundations are fixed far beneath the surface of the soil.Why do we love the name of Daniel? Because on the first page of his history we read, “But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king’s meat, nor with the wine which he drank”, and from that day all the powers of earth and hell never shook his purpose. No wonder we sing, “Dare to be a Daniel,” for Daniel never disgraced himself with wavering.I have had an ardent admiration for George the III. since reading what he said in his speech on the question of Catholicism, in which he used this noble sentence: “I can give up my crown and retire from power; I can quit my palace and live in a cottage; I can lay my head on a block and lose my life; but I cannot break my oath.” The wickedest man that walks respects such heroism as that.A young man that I love had long been disgraced and degraded by strong drink. At last an almost fatal sickness came and as he lay, in awful agony, face to face with death, he prayed saying, “O God, spare me this one time more and I will reform and live for Thee and Thy work.” God came down into that room and scourged out of it every demon of disease, and a few days later he was at his work.Then the temptations came, but he said, “No, I have quit!” In Louisville one morning he met some old drinking chums and they said, “Come and let’s have something to drink.” He politely declined. They broke into a laugh of ridicule and said, “Quit!

Quit!”, and putting their arms about him, carried him in and ordered the glasses filled. He stood before the foaming cup a minute and then turning to one he said, “Bob, if you think I will touch that you are mistaken.

Put a thousand dollar bill beneath it and say drink the cup and take that money, and I would hate the offer,” and then he walked out. Bob followed him and when they met without he said, “God bless you, old fellow; that is the noblest stand I ever saw you take.”The devil himself must appreciate such heroism, and God and angels must fill Heaven with some sweeter song when men who have been wavering and have drifted long, become anchored at last, with the flukes beneath the “Eternal Rock,” the Christ.Finally let us remember thatThe man who so disgraces himself, by the same fit of wavering, dishonors God. One of the most potent influences against Christ and His Church is a vacillating profession of religion—the man who is on the mountain top when all goes well, but in the hour of temptation or trouble forgets that he ever had a God, or else concludes that He is either indifferent to the interests of souls, or else unable to help us.Wavering is always in consequence of doubt. Strong faith never wavers, and only firm faith in God’s goodness and power, honors Him. You remember the case of the leper who came to Christ for help and he said, “Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean”. A little girl went with her mother to church when the leper’s words were the text.

She listened to the sermon and seemed unusually thoughtful as she trudged homeward at her mother’s side. Upon reaching there, she went to the cupboard and took out the carving knife, and, with it in hand, she went for the family Bible.

The mother saw her actions and, fearing for both the child and the Book, said, “Why daughter, what are you doing?” “I was reading about that man who came to Jesus and said, “Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean”, and I thought he ought not to have said “if” to Jesus, and so please mother, I’m a’ scrapin’ it out.”That is the thing every Christian should do with his doubts, and then he could more nearly comply with Paul’s injunction: “Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for He is faithful that promised)” (Hebrews 10:23).But wavering is not confined to Christians. The biggest amount of it is indulged in by the unbelievers of the world. They more often lack the anchorage of moral principles, and always the steadfastness of faith. I once read with interest what Talmage said in his sermon just after the accident to the steamship Edam, which was tossing for awhile in the storm, with no lighthouse, no harbor, no help.Talmage said: “When I thought of that vessel I said, ‘That is a skeptic, that is an infidel, drifting, drifting, drifting, not knowing where he drifts. In this assembly how many there are—not quite certain about the truth of the Bible, not certain about anything. Oh how I would like to tow them in!

I throw you out the cable of the Gospel. Lay hold of it.

Come in, oh, you wanderers on the deep! Look to the Lighthouse of Heaven, and remember that harbor is wide enough for us all, and once in, the waves of temptation break against its walls in vain, and the vessels of immortality are never more to be driven by the wind and tossed.’”

James 1:19

THE TO James 1:19-27. WHEN we had concluded our first study in James we had treated but sixteen verses. Time limit was the only occasion for making that a stopping place. As suggested in the previous discourse, James is too good a preacher to end with the awful words “sin” and death”; if he did so, instead of helping men out of discouragement, he would aid in bringing them to its greater depths. It is like him, therefore, to follow the sentence, “Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. Do not err, my beloved brethren”—with such a phrase as that heard in the seventeenth verse: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning This sentence looks both backward and forward. It is a further and most effective argument in favor of the fact that God cannot be tempted with evil; and He Himself tempteth no man. On the contrary, He is the Author of good and only good; and His unchangeable character is such that He cannot vary from this custom of benediction, nor Cast a shadow by hiding His face from men, as the sun hides by the turning of the earth.In looking forward it paves the way for encouragements yet to be spoken; and I want to arrange these encouragements under one general head, namely,THE OF TRUTH TO TRIUMPH We are begotten by the Truth. “Of His own will begat He us with the Word of Truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures”. The ministers of modern times have not made as much as they ought of the fact that men are begotten by the Truth. There is many a sermon, yea, many a volume, devoted to the subject of Christianity in which the authors have quoted little or nothing from the Word of God. Why all ministers are not soul-winners may, in part, be answered at this very point. We doubt if the most eloquent speaker that ever appeared in a pulpit, can effectively reach the hearts of men and turn them to Christ except he both be familiar with the Word of Truth and oft employ it. It is a circumstance so common as to be suggestive that the men who know the Truth best, and depend upon it most absolutely, are the ministers and laymen who can reach the souls of their fellows. Paul affirmed of the Gospel that it was “the power of God unto salvation”; and he was only witnessing unto the remarks of Isaiah: “So shall My Word be that goeth forth out of My mouth: it shall not return unto Me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it” (Isaiah 55:11).

If one could hear testimonies from such an audience as this, while there would be great variety in the expression of personal experiences, the mighty majority would accord at one point, namely, that some text in the Word of God was so illuminated by His Spirit as to become to them light and the medium of life. Our victory then, over that death in trespasses and sins, of which the Apostle speaks, was accomplished by the Word.In view of that great fact no wonder the Apostle proceeds to make demand.The truth is to be given audience.“Let every man be swift to hear”. Ordinarily men are interested in proportion to possible profit! Then, since life itself is linked to the hearing of the Word, men should have ears for naught else until that has certainly been received. You will recall that Jesus, in the parable of the sower, exalts that fourth company as the ones who heard the Word, and understood it, and bore fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty. I call your attention here to the illustration which the Apostle finds in the principle of engrafting. After having begged his brethren to be “swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath”, the Apostle adds, “For the wrath of God worketh not the righteousness of God. Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted Word, which is able to save your souls”.

The expression “implanted” in the American Revised Version carries with it the same thought as “engrafted” in the Old Version, something that is not inherent with us. The truth is not a native virtue with men.

Men are now trying to bring us to believe that every man is inspired, and has some measure of God’s Truth in him; on the contrary, James affirms that Divine Truth is an implantation, or engrafting,—something brought in from without; yea, ‘brought down from Heaven,’ and implanted in our hearts, or engrafted in our natures, that it might effect in our conduct, what grafting accomplishes for fruit trees, namely, change and marvelous improvement.The great cry of the twentieth century is for culture; even ministers of the Gospel speak of “the evangelism of culture” and “the Christianity of culture” and “the culture of church-membership,” et cetera.One does well to ask what he proposes to cultivate? I listened to a minister a while ago who declared that you could take a child in its natural state and by culture make of it a Christian. If so, then the law of Genesis that everything should bring forth “after its kind” has been subjected to a change. How long would you cultivate a crab-tree in order to make it produce pippins? Few things on the old farm interested the lad so much as grafting. I have seen my father take his sharp knife and slit the limb which had been sawed away and put in it the graft.

After arranging the tender bark of both graft and limb in perfect touch, he would wrap it about with a string and seal it against the decaying elements of air and water, and lo, it would live, and in a few years fruit would be found—not that of the original tree at all; it had not a suggestion of its nature; its character was determined absolutely by the graft; it only brought forth “after its kind”.I heard Mr. Pierce, the well-known Sunday School worker, relate how his father took him with his brothers when they were young boys, into the woods and had them dig up a crab-apple sprout, and, once at home, to plant it in their garden.

Then he urged them to cultivate it to the best of their endeavor. They kept down the weeds in that vicinity; they laid fertilizer to its roots; in winter they sheltered it from the storm by binding straw about its body. By and by it began to bear, but the fruit was only knotty, bitter crab-apples. The father said, “Boys, you haven’t cultivated it sufficiently or it would bring forth better fruit.” They redoubled their efforts; the tree flourished, but the fruit was still the bitter crab-apple. They were now older and said, “Father, don’t you know that a crab tree can’t bring forth any other kind?” And he, seeing that they were convinced, said, “Boys, we will try another plan.” So he sawed off the limbs and engrafted into the tree a twig from a fine apple tree. A few years and the tree was covered with luscious fruit, and the business of the boys was to trim back the crab-apple sprouts to the very body of the tree that the whole strength might be poured through this implanted nature, and thereby produce the beautiful, edible apple.Beloved, if the Word of God never has any place in our hearts, I can tell you what life will bear, for “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envying’s, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like” (Galatians 5:9-21). But if that wonderful Word of God be implanted, then even the old nature will make its contribution, and pour its strength through the new graft, and life will be found expressing itself in “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance”.Again, the Word is to be put into practice.James says,“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 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”. He here expresses a truth that I need, and that some of you need. I find more people professing holiness than are practicing it. It was doubtless true then, as it is certainly true now, that the more loudly one asserts his sanctification the more surely we have to guard ourselves against him. One of the most pitiful experiences to which the Name of Christ is subjected is that of having people make their professions in it, and then, secretly or openly, practice the spirit of the adversary. I happen to belong to the company of those who believe that the Bible teaches sanctification, and that the goal of the Christian is perfection in Christ; but I fall in with some so-called holiness people when I find an occasion for Matthew 7:1-5—“Judge not, that ye be not judged. “For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? “Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? “Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye?” It may be that holiness consists in calling attention to the defects of others and in exalting one’s own character and profession by false statements, but I do not so understand the Word of God, nor so interpret the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Here are a few sentences that might help those who profess to be holy to practice it:“If we say that me have no sin, me deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, mho walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (Romans 8:1). “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city” (Proverbs 16:32). Now if you will pardon me for being personal, I will preach to myself a few minutes, taking it for granted that there is no one else here of this sort of conduct, for the story is about a minister, and likely will not apply to a layman. Madison Peters tells of this preacher: He Was trying to dress himself to make pastoral calls. When he came to fix his collar he found that the button was gone, and he couldn’t fasten the collar. When he discovered it, his patience left him and he began to storm around, and, when finally dressed, left his wife in tears. His first call was on an old man with rheumatism who was unable to use his limbs. But he was patient, and even cheerful.

Then he called upon a young man wasting away with tuberculosis, but his heart was fixed upon Christ. Later he visited an old grandmother who lived by herself in a miserable garret. As he went up the stairs to her forlorn chamber he heard her singing:“There is a land of pure delight, Where saints immortal reign; Eternal day excludes the night, And pleasures banish pain.” She was lying on her hard pallet; by her side was a crust of bread and a cup of cold water, but she had marked her Bible at, “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head”. And she exclaimed, “O blessed Bible! It is as if a shining angel talked to me out of Heaven. My poor chamber seems Heaven’s gate, and I am happy, so happy.” The last call was at a home where a young mother sat by the coffin of her first-born. Her cheeks were stained by tears. She had been pressing her lips to the cold forehead and running her hands through the silken hair, but to his surprise, she was cheerful.

She said, “My Saviour said, ‘Suffer little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not: for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven’. My baby has gone to Heaven; my lamb is in the Shepherd’s bosom.” The minister went home deeply impressed with the comfortings of Christ. In the evening he said to his wife: “What a wonderful thing the grace of God is. Wonderful! Wonderful! How much it can do; nothing is too hard for it.” “Yes,” replied the little wife, “it is wonderful indeed, but there is one thing it does not seem to have the power to accomplish.”“Pray what can that be?”“Why it does not seem to have the power to control the minister’s temper when his shirt button is gone!”Before we say too much along the line of sanctification, let men learn to control their tempers, and women to hold their tongues, for our practice and our words ought to conform to our profession.

Jesus once said,“Whosoever cometh to Me, and heareth My sayings, and doeth them, I will shew you to whom he is like: “He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the storm beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock. “But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built an house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great”. But our chapter contains another suggestion: THE THAT IS OF GOD “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”. From what James here says, two or three things are fairly certain:First, the religion that is of God is not that of the self-content.“If any man among you seem to be religious” is a significant phrase. The context immediately following gives meaning to the word “seem”. It is not an appearance of piety only, but a sort of self-assumption. Many of you will remember how my great co-laborer, Dr. Frost, preached on “True Humility.” That evening a visiting brother of St. Louis spoke and he took occasion to say, “I agreed with all that Dr.

Frost said this morning concerning humility, but I must remind you that the moment one becomes conscious of his humility, he ceases to be humble.”This same truth applies to this expression, “If any man among you, seem to be religious”.Is it a good thing for a man to make up his mind that he is religious, peculiarly religious, religious beyond, his brethren; that he is in special favor with the Lord? I enjoyed a visiting minister, but the one thing I found most difficult to receive from him was the statement that he confidently expected to hold a high office under the Lord when He should come to reign.A few days since a young woman raised this objection to my ministry—it was a novel idea to me and I did not know what reply to make at the time and I do not know now—“Why should I sit at your feet when I have heard you say that you have not received all that the Lord has for you?”I certainly have not; I am not proud of it, but it is a fact; and one had just as well confess that fact.

If I thought I had received all that the Lord has for me I should be somewhat disturbed.How many of you remember reading Hawthorne’s “The Man of Adamant,” in which the whole subject of self-conceit is laid bare in beautiful language. He says: “So Richard Digby took an axe to hew space enough in the wilderness, and some few other necessaries, especially a sword and gun to smite and slay any intruder upon his hallowed seclusion, and plunged into the dreariest depths of the forest. On its verge, however, he paused a moment, to shake off the dust of his feet against the village where he had dwelt, and to invoke a curse on the meeting-house, which he regarded as a temple of heathen idolatry. He felt a curiosity, also, to see whether the fire and brimstone would not rush down from Heaven at once, now that one righteous man had provided for his own safety. But, as the sunshine continued to fall peacefully on the cottages and fields, and the husbandmen labored and children played, and as there were many tokens of present happiness, and nothing ominous of a speedy judgment, he turned away, somewhat disappointed.”“For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself. “But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another” (Galatians 6:3-4). The religion that is of God never formulates itself into a creed, exalting its subject, but finds expression rather in conduct in which its subject gladly makes sacrifices.James further reminds us thatThe religion which is of God is not that of the slanderous tongue.“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”. We are too little disposed to lay proper emphasis upon holding the tongue. The temptation is to imagine that if one will only be active in work, prompt in his attendance upon church services, giving to the needy, he is thereby free to say what he pleases. But the fact is, the people who minister best at home, in the ministry, and in the street, are those whose tongues are under the control of regenerate hearts. It is just possible for one to be unchristianly correct. I have listened to the late Dr. Dowie speak things that I believed to be true, and yet I could not enter into sympathy with the bitter denunciations of those who did not see eye to eye with him.One of the most unholy talks to which I ever listened was upon the subject of “Sanctification.” It was not unscriptural in expression for the most part, but unchristian in spirit from beginning to end.

A few; days since, a good minister of Jesus Christ was talking to me about some expressions employed by an Evangelist now holding meeting in Iowa, and asked, “What do you think of these? Great crowds go to hear him, quite a few profess conversion. Would it therefore seem to be approved?” I could only answer, “In studying the language of the Apostles, I discover no precedent for such speech, and when Jesus Christ excoriated the hypocrites of His time He was severe, but never coarse; and if we are not to find our examples in the Apostles and the Lord, then to whom shall we go?”Carlyle once said, “Piety does not mean a sour face. If there is any one thing more than another that religion ought to typify it is God’s sunshine.” And if true religion may not find expression in a sour face, can it be voiced in acrid speech?“Where there is no talebearer, the strife ceaseth” (Proverbs 26:20). “The Words of a talebearer are as wounds, and they go down into the innermost parts of the belly” (Proverbs 18:8). “A talebearer revealeth secrets: but he that is of a faithful spirit concealeth the matter” (Proverbs 11:13). “Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people” (Leviticus 19:16). “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (Romans 8:1). “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city” (Proverbs 16:32). The world has a good many opportunities of employing the tongue to the profit of people. I read the story of a young man who had been an organist in one of the principal cities of Texas. He was a fine musician, but blind. Being unable to see the faces of his audience he knew not how they received his music. A year or two went by and never a word reached him. The people were enchanted, and often expressed themselves to one another as to his ability, but never to him.

Finally one morning they were greatly shocked at the announcement that he would play no more after that service, that his decision was final, and that another organist must be secured. When the meeting was over, a woman went up to him and said very earnestly: “I am so sorry you are to play for us no longer; I have enjoyed your music so much. It has helped me greatly; it has comforted me when I sorrowed, and I know that the whole church feel about it as I do.” The young man faltered; tears rushed to his sightless eyes, as he replied: “Oh, why didn’t you tell me? I, too, have needed comfort.”Beloved, the religion that is of God has daily opportunities to express itself in speech better than slander, and I sometimes pray for the circumcision of our ears that the whisperer shall ever fail of an audience.Finally, James teaches thatThe religion that is of God is that of the clean-souled servant.“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 James is not attempting here to sum up the whole duty of man. He is only naming a certain essential of a sacred life; and he does not lodge that essential in two separate and independent things, as I have been accustomed to think—sacrifice and separation from the world; but in the one thing of being a clean-souled servant.Inward purity and outward beneficence are only the golden and silver sides of the same shield; only the pure in heart will practice the sacred precepts, for out of the heart “are the issues of life”.The former honored pastor of this church, Dr. Way land Hoyt, rehearses the legend of St. Anthony. He substituted his religion for everything, and so became a hermit amid the Egyptian hills, withdrawing from usual life and giving himself entirely to prayer and meditation. But a voice spoke out of the breeze one day, “Anthony, thou art not so holy a man as is the cobbler in Alexandria.” Amazed, Anthony took his staff, and started for the city.

After weary days of journeyings he reached the city. After long search he found the cobbler in his little stall.” “Tell me how you live, how you spend your time,” said Anthony. “Verily,” said the abashed cobbler, “I have no great works; I am only a poor cobbler; but I seek to remember that I am all the time under the eye of the great Master; so I try to keep me ever from all falseness.

When I take a stitch, it is a stitch; when I mend a sandal, it is with good leather and not paper. I pray when the dawn breaks, and when the night shuts; I trust the Master’s care; I seek to please Him in all things; I am thankful for the food He sends me; so I work and eat and sleep and live my little life, never fearing that the great Master will not at last bring me to the everlasting light. And the voice sighed out of the breeze, “Ah me, that one life should be so humbly full, and another so proudly empty!”And concerning this latter, Dr. Hoyt remarks, “I have read how two million tons of the purest silver are held in solution by the sea, enriching each drop of its waters. A religion which thus becomes element in everything, glorifying even every drudging task, penetrating every deed, word, thought, as the days come and the days go, is the religion needed.”

James 1:27

DEFINED James 1:27AT the Chicago University years since, I dropped into a classroom to listen to a recitation. It was an off-day with the boys and an immense amount of halting and stammering was done, interspersed with excuses from several for not being prepared. Among the company called up, one young fellow employed the familiar student speech, “Professor, I know the answer to your question, but I can’t just express it.” It is doubtful if that plea has ever yet influenced a professor to a more favorable mark, simply because we believe that the average man can tell all he knows, if not more. And yet there are ideas that beggar words! The moral and spiritual realms are most fruitful of them. Pilate asked Christ, ‘What is truth”? Christ did not then answer it. Just why He did not is purely a matter of speculation.Father Ryan, the poet priest of Louisville, in an ode entitled, “The Song of the Mystic”, says what seems to suggest that thoughts often rise above the reach of words:“In the hush of the valley of silence I dream all the songs that I sing; And the music floats down the dim valley Till each finds a word for a wing, That to hearts, like the dove of the deluge, A message of peace they may bring. “But far on the deep there are billows That never shall break on the beach, And I have heard songs in the silence That never shall float into speech, And I have had dreams in the valley Too lofty for language to reach. “And I have seen thoughts in the valley, Oh! me, how my spirit was stirred! And they wear holy veils on their faces, Their footsteps can scarcely be heard: They pass through the valley like virgins, Too pure for the touch of a word!” But next to God and Truth, what definition would strain the powers of human speech above that of religion! Uninspired men, in the face of the help in our text, are constantly falling short in their speeches regarding this most important theme. One says, “Religion is love another, “Religion is faith;” while a third defines with equal ardor, “Religion is obedience to Divine Law.” They are all wrong, because they are all partially right. Religion is all of those things and more.But why do we deem it necessary to form our partial definitions of that about which we have God’s mind. If we accept the Epistle of James as inspired, then it should be expected that this definition of religion is as superior to all or any that mere men will make, as God’s mind is high above the reason of man. Upon closer study we will find this text compassing this word “religion” as it has never been elucidated by the unaided intellect of man.

By far the most tremendous phases of spiritual life are here set forth in the strongest light.See how this text tells the relation that one’s religion sustains to his own character. We are here taught the much-needed duty of keeping ourselves “unspotted from the world”.There is, then, in religion a selfishness that is righteous and right.

It is the selfishness of the soul interested to be first saved and then sanctified. Many times Christ and His Apostles upbraided men for sensual selfishness, such as pride, greed, and lust; but never for the selfishness that sought some spiritual good. He said, “Take no thought for your life”,—the physical life—“what ye shall eat; * * nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on”. But of the life of the soul He sought to excite men to the most intense concern. When a young man disturbed the progress of a meeting by crying out, “Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me”, He only answered, “Man, who made Me a judge or a divider over you? * * Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth” (Luke 12:13-15). But when the rich young ruler came, saying, “Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life”?

Jesus loved him. Both speeches were selfish, but one was sensual in its greed, while the other was the soul’s cry after the eternal good.

When Simon Magus wanted the Holy Ghost for the purpose of sorcery, Peter looking on him with scorn, said, “Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money” (Acts 8:20). But when the Gentiles at Samaria believed and wanted the same Holy Ghost for purposes of spiritual power, Peter was the first to lay hands on them that they might receive Him. Both appeals were self-centering, but one sensually so, whilst the other was spiritual.Christ did not rebuke the cry of the dying robber, “Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy Kingdom”. Peter was pleased to hear from the people the Pentecostal query, “Men and brethren, what shall we do”? (Acts 2:37). And Paul gladly regarded the jailer’s question, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved”? (Acts 16:30).For the unsaved man, personal salvation ought to take precedence over all other thought. If you have read the little booklet, “The Last Pages of an Officer’s Diary,” you will remember how that officer, whose physician had told him that thirty days, at the most, would bring life’s end, gave himself solely to the question, “How can I get my soul saved?” The accustomed festivities of the table, the horse, the hunt, the ball, and even business appeals he despised, saying, “But I have only a month to live!

How can I get my soul saved?” Whoever thought of condemning that sentiment as selfish? It was so, but righteously so!But for the soul that would be saved, personal holiness is a primary necessity.

Christ said, in perfect keeping with the thought of this morning’s text, “But seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness”. There are not a few who are seeking the Kingdom of Heaven, but are unwilling to accept God’s righteousness. You ask them if they want to go to Heaven, and they answer, “Yes, I expect to do so.” “Do you love holiness?” and if they answered truthfully they would! say, “We hate it.” And yet, God’s Word for it—“and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord”.Wm. Acker reminded the world of an important truth when he wrote, “There is no gaining admittance into the Kingdom of Heaven’s privy chamber of felicity, without passing through the straight gate of purity. “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God”. Though holiness be that which a sinner scorns, yet it is that which a Saviour crowns.” The man who hopes to wear the coronet of Heaven must be clean. Cleanness is not a question of outward behavior.

It has to do with the secret springs of the soul and is known perfectly only to God and the individual man.Outside observers suppose every man, who behaves decorously in their presence, clean. But the man who brings such behavior knows whether his heart is right and his soul is escaping dreadful blight.The Pharisees must often have been in honest doubt if Christ’s speeches were the perfect truth, but when He turned upon them and told how they covered unclean hearts beneath whited reputations, they knew full well the facts in the case.

Every man knows whether his character is as clean as his public record or not, and God knows. He discovers it to himself in his private reading. He who delights in that newspaper that seems the sink of all sin and spreads before the eye the sensational reports of murder, theft, jealousies, and lust let loose, knows himself to be unclean, and all the ablutions administered by sacred hands and in consecrated pools or fonts, cleanse him in nothing.A man’s favorite books tell this tale just as well. Go into a train and watch the people draw their volumes from valises, or buy from the newsboy, and the titles will tell the state of the heart. Go into a man’s library, and if he loves lust, Goethe’s volumes will be thumb-worn, but if he hates it and shrinks shuddering from sin, Hawthorne is his favorite instead, for Hawthorne makes sin seem what it is—a hideous thing.Every man and woman who rides through the streets knows whether the heart is clean, whether the soul is keeping itself unspotted from the world, as he looks at the theatrical advertisements that line the way. Many of them are of such a character as become perfect tests of moral integrity.

They can produce but one impression on the clean mind, and that is a righteous indignation that such stains on our civilization are either permitted by law, or preserved by a low public sentiment. Then again, every city is now supplied with institutions of public entertainment that test, try, and tear down the morals of the youth, and prove and publish the immorality of many that make loud profession of purity.What Mr.

Beecher said of his city is sadly so of ours, and daily growing worse. His language was: “There is many an opera in New York whose central element is reeking lust of the most detestable character. Nothing can be worse. But they take a silk string and wind about it; they cover it up with exquisite title airs and melodies and scenes, and men go to enjoy themselves, and more and more they become fascinated, and gradually they lose their manliness. If you say anything to them on the subject, they answer, ‘Why, I do not care for those things.’ Oh! can a person let those outrageous abominations, be dressed up so exquisitely, and dance so gaily before his eyes, that he does not think them wicked, and be unchanged? I do not believe in that purity or that integrity which can become so accustomed to prurient sins in life, that they gently pass before them without a revolt.

I believe that as a tuned ear is actually pained by hideous discords, not because the books on the philosophy of music proclaim that they are disagreeable, but because they stab the ear; so a pure nature hates all that is salacious, not because custom or religion says it is bad, but because all the power of the soul feels that it is positively abominable.”Many a man, multitudes of women, get small comfort from their faith in Christ because they are conscious of having on them the stain of the world. We can’t walk “in the counsel of the ungodly”, nor stand “in the way of sinners”, nor “sit in the seat of the scornful”, and yet enjoy the presence of God.

A Welsh clergyman tells of having seen a small boy standing outside his father’s door, crying bitterly, in need of help, yet not daring to lift the latch and enter. When asked why he cried so, why he did not go in, he replied, “Mother sent me out clean this morning, but I waded in a mud-hole and now see my clothes!”It is always so if we have stained ourselves with the world. Even the gracious face of God, so fatherly in its affection, so motherly in love, is torture, not joy, when we disregard the injunction of the text and suffer Satan to soil our blood-washed garments with some crimson stain. If we are to get any joy out of our faith, if we are to be religious at all, we must strive to keep ourselves “unspotted from the world”.Again, this text defines religion as a benevolent motive. It tells one how he should deport himself toward the sick and suffering.“Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction”. There are different ways of interpreting that sentence. One can take this view of it: “Well, that means that I am to go over and sit with that widow who has recently buried her husband and try to cheer her up and help her to forget her sorrow. I am to call at the house of those orphans and give them some sound advice, and with that, my religious duty is done.” That is a very narrow interpretation. It reminds one of the case of that woman whose sister had met with a whole flock of misfortunes. A neighbor, meeting her, asked how the afflicted sister was getting on. “Oh terribly!” was her reply. “Two of the children are down sick, her husband is out of work, and the mortgage on their home is about to be foreclosed. Isn’t it shocking!

Poor thing!”“Of course you have done what you could to relieve her mind!”“Not yet, but I am going to send her a beautiful card at Easter.”It is a good thing to do dainty benevolences, and spread some benevolences by smiles, cards, and flowers as one passes through the world. But Christians can afford to leave that sort of religion to be proclaimed by infidels, since it is their stock in trade; and prove the better faith of evangelism by renting and furnishing houses for aged parents, providing food for widowed sisters with their children, hospitals for the sick, homes for unfortunate waifs, houses of refuge for sin-hunted youth, and the Gospel for the slums and avenues alike, for country place and town in every land.The truest benevolence yet known is that born of the fraternal spirit of religion.Fraternity is not a question of birth or breeding or association.

Jacob and Esau were called twins, yet they were strangers in character and conduct. The poet has said, “One stroke of nature makes all men kin.” But if so, the kinship is of the lowest sort, that of the material, and true of the links that bind us to monkeys as well as to men. It is one stroke of grace that brings the better brotherhood. It is the religion of Jesus Christ that breaks all barriers down and starts a sympathetic throb of love for all the unfortunate beneath the sun. The home may number six sons, and yet the widowed sister knows only one brother in her sorrow, because but one of the lot has grace enough to sacrifice on the altar of her need. The only brother in the family is the one that loves, and the only religionist worthy of the name is the one who lives to relieve something of the suffering and sorrow that surrounds him.When Alexander of Russia was a small boy his father, Nicolas, noticed that he often seemed sad.

One day the father said, “Alexander, of what are you thinking?” “Of the poor serfs!” was his reply, “and when I come to the throne I will emancipate them.” The father tried to dissuade him from that purpose, and argued that to set them free was to sacrifice great incomes. But Alexander was steadfast, and as soon as he became emperor, the sound of clanking chains on the feet of serfs was hushed from the plains of Russia.

That was religion! He had read in God’s Word that all men are brothers and believed it, and his religion was no longer in doubt when he showed the true spirit of helping most, the weakest.Pure religion, then, does not stop with reading good resolutions, or even with having them printed, framed, and hung on the wall. We often resolve to be religious. We resolve to be benevolent. We resolve to be missionary. But those resolutions are as meaningless as many that hang on office doors; they lie unused in the mind that framed them, or take up space in church, associational, and other religious records.The Apostles were religious men, and Moody has wisely referred to the fact, that in all their writings we find not one single resolution passed, but a whole Book was required to report their “Acts.”Religion is action.

Mr. Chaplin said, “The religion that fancies it loves God, and yet does nothing to help its brother, and evinces no love for its brother, is not piety.

It may be dogma with a worm in its heart. If you love God, you will love your fellow-men.”If we love them we will give them substantial assistance when they need it. Religion has in it that element of selfishness that makes personal salvation a first concern, but it is also unselfish enough to make the comfort of others the prime object of all after living.When the steamer Atlantic went to pieces on Mar’s Rock, among those who struggled against the billows to save themselves, was a clergyman, who, after much battling, came to the shore and climbed up on the beach. But he didn’t seek the fire and say, “Thank God, I am safe; now I will sit down, dry my clothes, and be comfortable.” Looking back on the angry waves he saw men and women struggling in their last strength and ready to go down. He cried to some sailors near at hand. “Boys, launch the boat! Yonder are men freezing in the rigging of the wreck; weak women ready to yield to the hungry waves, and we must save them!” Back into that foaming sea he helped row the life-saving bark, despising the suggestion of danger, and forgetting personal comfort at the sight of others’ peril.That was religion.

That is religion now—to help the helpless and save the sinking. The most widowed are those who are not wedded to Jesus.

The most fatherless among the sons of men are those who have not found a father in God. The most threatening sea is the ocean of sin that swallows its thousands daily. The most religious man is the one who gains the love of his fellows for his Lord; discovers to darkened eyes the grace of God, and snatches drowning immortals from the Sea of Iniquity that surges about them with its threat of death.There are a great many people in these days professing to be religious. There never were so many religious organizations in the world as now. The old issues are outnumbered by the new. Every day brings to the surface some new sect that comes forth crying, “Eureka!

Eureka!” and its few adherents turn apostles, every one, and go out to inform the disciples of the old faiths that their doctrine is wrong—to say, the Bible was never interpreted until we Spiritualists arose, or we Theosophists began; hear our doctrine and get the key to Biblical mystery.But a system of faith is not religion. What James wants to know is—How a man lives.“For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also” (James 2:26). “God is no respecter of persons: but in every nation he that feareth Him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with Him”.