Visiting Orphans and Widows

The call of the church is to embrace this massive term, visit. Visit. That's what characterizes this.

Visit. It's a huge word. Massive.

We are to embrace that in our own personal lives and as a church. Pure and undefiled religion. Here it is.

What does that mean? Orphans? Widows? What's that? This is not even on the radar. And yet, true and undefiled religion before the Lord. Here it is.

Where I mean to stay today is in James 1. So if you've got your Bibles, please open up there. James 1. We're going to look at the very last verse in James. Father, I just pray You would help this weak endeavor.

Help us at this time. We really believe that little is much when God is in it. Lord, we know You can do things that are just absolutely impossible with us.

Lord, do some things exceedingly abundantly beyond what we ask or think. We pray that You would be good to that Word that You've given us. In Christ's name I pray.

Amen. Okay. James 1.27. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this.

To visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world. Now, typically, I know when I first got saved, I didn't like to hear, you know how you would hear people say, I got religion. The term religion is usually not my choice of terms.

Probably most of us. Any of you seen the old Sergeant York? How many of you know that? Give me this old time religion. You remember that? Now, I don't know if that's really the song they were singing the night he got saved or not, but I guess it worked well for Hollywood.

Someone says I got religion. To me it sounds cheap. But you know what? That's not what, obviously, God's inspired this.

And all you got to do is go to the next verse. Remember, there's no chapter breaks in the original. So if you go to James 2.1, what do you see there? Show no partialities, you hold, what's it say? The faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

So obviously, what is James? I mean, James uses religion in one verse, and in the very next one, he describes exactly what he means by it. You got to love. I mean, Scripture interprets itself.

So James point in verse 27 is what? If you've got this faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, that religion, that old time religion, then what? It'll have two very noticeable effects in your life. That's what he says. You see it.

A love for one thing and a loss of love for another thing. Now you see what's happening here. Practical compassion and a personal purity.

You love the widow and you hate the world. That's the kind of thing you have happening here. It's not one or the other, it's both.

There's balance here. And brethren, I feel that it can almost be a tension. How so? Well, you know what? When my children were growing up, I had a real desire for purity.

I had a desire for purity in the family, when it came to the music, when it came to what happened with TVs or computers. I'm not going to say I was absolutely 100% successful. The video game thing got the best of Joshua and that was not meant to happen.

It was the technology developed and we lost control somewhere along the line. But praise the Lord, God's grace rises above sin getting a better part or an idol getting a better part. But I sought to very closely regulate the movies, the purity.

I wanted the family to be a place of purity and yet at the same time, we located the church right among prostitutes and the guys dealing their drug stuff. We'd take the children to dangerous places. We'd take the children to places where there were homeless people and it wasn't so safe.

And brethren, I know what Psalm 24 says about clean hands and pure heart, but brethren, there's something here that would lead us to believe that pure heart, dirty hands. If we're going to follow the example of Jesus, what do we read in Scripture? We read that the Word, He became flesh and He came and He dwelt among us. And that's the thing.

That Jesus came to where we are. He came right here. All pure, all holy, sinless, undefiled, in humility.

What did Jesus do? He came with genuine love not to be served, but to serve. He came in genuine sacrifice and He dwelt among us. That's exactly what Scripture says.

Jesus calls us to follow Him. And a friend of tax collectors and sinners, we heard Luke 15 just recently, that the sinners and the tax collectors, these prostitutes, they approached. Jesus got right down in the filth and the dirt with mankind.

He got right in there close, right next to men and their sin and their need. That's what we find that He did. He went right to where they are.

Right to where we are. The highways, the hedges, the back alleys. He went to where the people are not so clean and not so nice to be around.

He got His hands dirty with the souls of men. That's what we find in Scripture. He got just face to face with these people.

And so, my emphasis this week is the first part of verse 27. We don't want to be the kind of people that... You see, one of the things that can happen is when you fear impurity, you can default into an isolationist mindset where we withdraw. We retract.

I mean, how many of you haven't had something of the little house on the prairie, I guess, desire? You want to go move away to where you deem life to be kind of this pure place and you can raise your children without all the influences. You can get away from it. Any of you felt that? You kind of want to move out and be separated from all this.

You want to clear out. Well, the thing is that yes, we can get and we should. We've got to think about irated movies in the internet and all the garbage that's on there and what we're going to allow our children to do and the video games and immorality and inappropriate ungodliness and it's all around us.

Filthy language. Of course, we want to stay away from impure doctrine, but we don't want to neglect the needs of the poor and the needy, which is the issue here. Purity is crucial, folks.

But Ruby and I have been trying to do this carnivore diet, so I thought about purity. Purity is like a clean fork, right? Clean fork's good. Forks should be clean.

You want them to be clean and you don't want to use them if they're not clean. But what is a clean fork good for? I'll tell you what it's good for. Stabbing the steak.

And the steak here is what? What is it? A utensil meant to do something. What is it? Yes, be watchful against all that defiles, but we want to be that clean fork with a purpose. We stick into that stake of kindness and compassion and justice.

So come with me. We're going to focus. I hope next time I want to deal with purity because that's absolutely essential.

And it's obviously essential here. Pure and undefiled religion before the Lord has to do with keeping ourselves uncontaminated from the world. And yet at the same time, we need to be going to where the needy are.

And that's what Jesus did. Jesus was able in all of His purity to go out into the midst of real red-blooded sinners and to rub shoulders with them and go eat with tax collectors and do things like that. Now I know we're talking about orphans and widows in this case, but obviously this fits into this whole picture.

Now, the first part. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their affliction. So, visit.

Hey kids, jump in the car and we're going to go visit Grandma. And what does that mean? What are we going to do when we do that? You pop in. You eat Grandma's cookies.

You kind of sit down. You have a little bit of talk. And then you're out of there.

Hey, we visited Grandma today. Now look, obviously the word can be used that way and it wouldn't be wrong. It wouldn't be contrary to the definition of what the word is.

Even this word that's found here in the Greek. It wouldn't be contrary to that. But listen, if that's all you do with the word, you've cheapened it into something that is sub-Christian.

If that's all you do with it. Visit is a huge word. And the truth is, you might hardly know that until you consider how it's used in Scripture.

And probably some verses might come to your minds right off. But listen to this. Listen to how it's used.

Joseph said to his brothers, I'm about to die, but God will visit you. Okay, what does he mean? God will visit you and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And you know what? When that day finally came that Joseph was predicting would come, remember this? God came, He sent Moses and Aaron back into the land.

They went in there and they gathered all the Hebrew people together. And they said, that God was visiting them and that He had come to release them out of Egypt and the people believed it. And when they heard that the Lord had visited the people of Israel and that He had seen their affliction, there you have both.

Visited and their affliction. You see, this is Israel in bondage in this iron furnace in Egypt. That word visit has the idea of God coming and redeeming them out, taking them out of this place of affliction.

That's the idea. We visit orphans and widows in their affliction and that's exactly the same idea that you have right here. Or Ruth.

When we go to Ruth, remember Naomi? She got to the place where she said to her daughter-in-laws that she had heard while in the fields of Moab that the Lord had visited His people and given them food. Do you see what visit has to do with here? It has to do with redemption. It has to do with delivering people out of affliction.

It has to do with giving food here. The Lord visited Hannah. She conceived and bore three sons and two daughters.

So you see, it's connected with blessing, giving. Giving Hannah something she greatly desired. Psalm 65 9, speaking to God, you visit the earth.

How? You know what? While we were praying this morning, God visited the earth and water it. You greatly enrich it. The river of God is full of water.

You provide grain. Jeremiah, Israel shall be carried to Babylon. Remain there until the day when God says, I will visit them.

Then I will bring them back and restore them to this place. We come to the New Testament. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel.

He has visited and redeemed His people. Again, because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high. Brethren, what a great calling for the church.

Acts 15 14, Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles to take from them a people for His name. Do you remember when God saved you? There was a visitation. I remember that night.

I remember the three months leading to that time. Now, look, look, look. You read your Bible? Yes, absolutely.

Visit can be negative. Listen to this, Isaiah 29 6, You will be visited by the Lord of hosts with thunder, with earthquake, great noise, with whirlwind and tempest, the flame of a devouring fire. But then, here's the point, even then, it's no small trifling little thing.

It's a big thing. And in the positive sense, which obviously that's the sense that James is using it, visit, think of it. It carries this idea of deliverance, of fullness, of provision, of blessing, of redemption.

Again, I say, brethren, what a calling for the church. We're to be God's visitors. Listen, this has to do with every one of you.

Why? Because I'm expecting that every single person in this place would like to have the religion that is genuine. You don't want to get to the end and find out it wasn't genuine. And so if it is genuine, what's pure and undefiled religion before God? It's to visit the orphan, and visit is a huge word.

As you can see, it has redemptive overtones to it. You can't get away from that. And look, that might be one of the things.

Have you ever heard how Scripture talks? Paul talks about saving people. And so often what we want to do is we want to go in with the gospel. Yes, there are other needs involved, but we have spiritual concerns for the people.

You see what's happening here. We're to be these visitors. Brethren, think of all the suffering that abounds in this wicked world.

All around us, the greed. I mean, that thing that happened with the Pharisees back then where they were extorting the widows, seeking the needy in society just as ways to have gain. They said there's nothing new about all that.

We have so much hatred in this world. So much apathy. People don't care.

People willing to just run over other people so that they might get ahead. You just think of all of it. All the selfishness and the apathy.

The thing is, and I'm not just talking out there, I'm talking about among people that claim to be God's people and have this true religion. They sit in the churches and they just don't care. We can come here and we're all interested in our own soul.

We're interested to hear the truth, but we just don't care. We can pass by other people who are just in some sort of affliction and some sort of need. What's the truth about orphans and widows? I mean, what is it that characterizes them? Well, they're easy targets.

They lack protectors. They lack providers. Among the needy, they're the most needy and often the most forgotten.

I mean, if you want to see just the, Adam, what have you done? I mean, what has he made this human race? It's a bunch of selfish... We just don't care about people. And what you see is that when God gets a hold of somebody genuinely and they have that true religion, true and undefiled before God, He's watching. This is His thing.

And this is what He means to produce in us. That our lives are somehow going to bend towards that needy person, especially that widow, especially that orphan out there. Brethren, you know, since this war in the Ukraine, I was listening to something just recently and they said 40,000 Ukrainian children are missing.

They're just missing. They're gone. Like they suspect that somebody has taken them.

Taken them where? We know about trafficking today. It's not likely they just slaughtered 40,000 children. They trafficked them to work and for sex.

Who took them? Does anybody care? Where are they? Are any of God's people going to do anything? Well, it can be hard to do something if you don't know where they are. But you know what? A lot of times we're just disinformed. We're misinformed.

We're just not informed. We don't hear. We're not like Job who's going out and seeking the cause of the needy.

Things are happening. 40,000 children, where are they? I guarantee the vast majority of them are not with their parents. They've been taken away.

Maybe their parents were killed. We don't know. But can you hear their cry? I mean, at the heart level, can anyone feel for them? Some of you may remember, who we support.

He said that when he was in China, he said they came across a child that begged in the streets whose grandmother threw acid in their face to make them more pitiful, more ugly, more disfigured so that they would make more money begging. That's the kind of thing, heart cold, heartless. There's something he said about the Chinese people.

It's just they're heartless. And it's true among the nations of this world. It is true that Americans tend to be some of the biggest givers.

And you have to think that that has to do with the effects of the gospel on this nation. But brethren, we live now. Whatever reputation we may have or whatever may be true of other people, true and undefiled religion before the Lord is to visit orphans and widows in their affliction.

There's still 82 orphans missing in Myanmar. You see that if you're following the reports, maybe there's a renewed hope that some of them might still exist. Be alive.

They're posting some pictures. The call of the church is to embrace this massive term, visit. Visit.

That's what characterizes this, visit. It's a huge word. Massive.

We are to embrace that in our own personal lives and as a church. Pure and undefiled religion. Here it is.

What does that mean? Somehow, I think little is much when God is in it. We may not be that big. We may not have that huge of resources.

But you know what? We can be a little church. We can be like Philadelphia and Christ can come along and He can open a door for us that nobody's able to shut. Sometimes it can seem so overwhelming and we're so small and our resources are so small.

But I'll tell you this, God was talking to these little, basically nobody, Galilean fishermen that spawned this day of Pentecost. I know God working through them. And you've had a little group of people that are followers of Jesus.

They recognize that they had been with Jesus. And that's been the case for 2,000 years. You have God's true people.

We're usually a remnant. We're usually not overly impressive. But God says this to us, before me, I'm watching.

Before me, when I save somebody, what is really of deep matter and importance to me is that I work in you a compassion like is in my Son. And that you're going to look and you're going to see the needs in the world, especially the need of the most needy. And you're going to respond.

That's pure and undefiled religion before me. That you visit. Visit.

Think of how big that word is in Scripture. There's going to be a visitation. That's the idea.

Brethren, that we're just going to, in all our manifold, many faceted, sacrificial ways, risk-taking ways, profound ways, God is watching. And that's what He wants from us. True and undefiled religion.

It's pure. Undefiled. That's it.

This is what He's calling us to. Not just to be doctrinally deep. Not just to have books on your shelf.

But to break free from that home and that office where your books are, where your library is, from these walls where the truth comes. And yes, we want to be doctrinally correct. But there's something about being equipped and being prepared for what? So that you might go do the work of the ministry.

What kind of ministry? This kind of ministry. This is exactly what He's calling us to. We're in the United States and the government takes care of it all.

And I recognize we are in the United States and it is true that the government will not allow people to do in this country many of the things that they used to be able to do for like, say, setting up orphanages and that. Everything is so regulated. But brethren, there are still things we can do in this country.

Things we must do. We should do. And you know what the way travel is today? We can get to any part of the world.

You can get anywhere in this world in very short order. In a number of hours. We can go there and we have money.

We have resources. We have the ability to do that. And to do what? To help.

To redeem. To provide for. To comfort those in need.

This is the very essence of what's true in undefiled religion. You know what? We all have preconceived ideas about what it really means to be God-fearing men and women. We have ideas.

And you know what? This obviously isn't the whole picture. And we're going to talk about purity. Purity obviously is a big part.

But when it comes to getting our hands dirty and what God wants us to be in this world, this speaks loudly before God. Before God. Does that grab you? This is what God saved us for.

This is what He... I mean, do you see the kind of God that we have? When you go back to the Psalms, God Himself is described this way. Of Him it's said, to you the helpless commits himself. You've been the helper of the fatherless.

And I have written, ever since we've been involved in China missions, I wrote over there about the Chinese orphans. Because there are passages that speak about God is the helper of the fatherless. How does He do it? What means does He use? Well, obviously He means to use us.

We are to be the hands and the feet of Christ in this world. This is the idea here. And this tremendous word, visit, it isn't just used of the orphan.

And it isn't just used of the widow. This is the very same word that Jesus used when He said, I was naked, you clothed Me, I was sick and you visited Me. And they said, when did we see you sick or in prison? And visit you.

Brethren, brothers and sisters, let this sink in deep. We Christians, what does that mean about our lives? What does that mean about the emphasis? About what ought to be important? We're all doing things in our lives. And we're all prioritizing a certain way.

And listen, I recognize, some people are at a place in life where they have more freedom. Sometimes the children you're concerned about are your own. You've got a whole swarm of little ones and you're pouring your life into them.

And I understand. Even then, oftentimes we have extra money. We'll talk more about that in the end.

But brethren, there are needs out there. There are hurts out there. There are afflictions in this world.

And as much as we might think we're afflicted in this place and we have through much tribulation, I recognize even if you're an American, it is going to be through much tribulation that we're going to inherit the kingdom. But brethren, the truth is there is suffering in other parts of the world unlike what we suffer. And all you have to do is get out there and take a look at it to recognize that that's the case.

Now, I'm not talking social gospel here. You know what I mean when I say that? That the social gospel is basically where we concern ourselves about the needs of others while we leave God out of the picture. And while we leave a concern for souls out of the picture.

Brethren, I remember years ago, we used to do ministry with a brother from Believers Fellowship. And we'd get together near Haven and near the Salvation Army. And we'd go with food and we would deal with these people that were under the bridge.

Either under the 281 bridge or the bridge over by Haven. And I remember it was coming up on Christmas and one of the local liberal denominational churches sent some folks over there. They were obviously wealthy, driving a great big, I forget if it was a dually or what, but a great big late model pickup truck.

And they came driving in there. And a guy or two jumped out, jumped in the back of the pickup, and just kind of kicked a box of clothing off the back and drove away. No interaction with the street people.

No gospel shared. No contact. They just drove away.

Folks, that's the social gospel thing that we're not talking about here. No truth. No tracts.

No sermon. No evangelism. No closeness.

But beware. Beware that you don't get so opposed to that kind of thing where you just kind of look down your nose at compassion ministries. Brethren, sometimes we hear about the young, reformed, restless group.

You know the kind of folks? They're out there on the internet. Maybe we've got some in here. You love apologetics.

Talk about it all day long. You love the debate doctrine. Double predestination.

You've got your ideas. Superlapsarianism. You've got your ideas.

Orphans? Widows? What's that? This is not even on the radar. And yet, true and undefiled religion before the Lord. Here it is.

And on the other hand, we never want to trade in the gospel, replace it with social agendas. And this whole social justice thing. It's basically, that's what we're talking about.

Brethren, what is our goal? Our goal is to speak like no one else ever speaks. Like Jesus did. And speak about the things He spoke about.

Like He did. And to do the things that He did. And show the compassion that He did.

You cannot separate. Jesus went around. And He went around speaking.

And He went around doing good. And brethren, we want to imitate Him. He's the perfection of this model.

This is what we're talking about here. Helpless children. Helpless women.

Are a great concern to Christ. And He says that our religion. He says it by way of His Holy Spirit through James.

If it's real, that reality is going to express itself in concern. With radical, sacrificial, risk-taking acts of compassion. And look, you've got to be thinking.

You've got to be strategically planning. You've got to be strategically thinking. How are we going to do this? How am I going to do this? There are other needs I recognize.

There are needs here among us I recognize. But brethren, sometimes we can get so taken up internally. And looking and introspective.

And we forget about the needs out there in the world. I'll tell you, one of the great ways is just go. One of the things John and I have talked about.

Is just taking people from the church away. For short-term, sometimes you look at short-term missions. And you say, how much good does that really do? It doesn't do a whole lot of good to the people that you try to reach.

But it does a lot of good for you. Short-term missions, you go out there. The people in other places, they're not overly impressed.

If you're not there long enough for them to see your lifestyle. See you sacrifice. See that you're like Christ.

And to actually have time to imbibe your teaching. Oh, they're glad to have your money. If you'll go somewhere and visit for two weeks and give them money.

Oh yeah, they're glad to have you come. In most places. Even people that are genuine.

They like to receive. And if you were out there, you would too. Because money helps you do certain things.

But brethren, one of the things about getting out and getting to places. We're hoping that this Kenya trip is going to evolve. And we'll get some folks out there.

You get out and you see. Brethren, the question I ask is. What does this have to do with us? Well, just this.

If this is what pure and undefiled religion is before God. If Jesus repeatedly said that He desires mercy and not sacrifice. If God says that when Josiah judged the cause of the poor and the needy.

That that's what it is to know Him. To know Him. You remember Jesus in this prayer that we just heard about.

Was praying. And He was talking about that we might have eternal life. And eternal life is to know Him.

And you know what? In the Old Testament we find that to know Him. Is the idea of what Josiah did. It's to be plugged in to the cause.

The needs of the poor and the needy. If the fast that God chooses is exactly this kind of thing. Share our bread with the hungry.

Bring the homeless poor into your house. Listen to this. Pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted.

There's that word afflicted again. We are to visit them in their affliction. There it is.

The fast He desires is that we find out people in their affliction. And what do you try to do? You try this huge word visit. You visit them in their affliction.

What's the desire? To alleviate the affliction. This is what we have. If this is so, then how much of our lives should be involved with this? Over against how much our life is involved in this.

That's what we have to ask. How much of your money goes in that direction? How much of your time? How much of your thought process? If this is pure and undefiled religion, can we just ignore this? Do we just walk away from this? Brethren, blame us on upright Job. I read to you several weeks back from him.

But get the fuller context. You know what he said? I delivered the poor who cried for help and the fatherless who had none to help him. That's the idea of the fatherless.

There's none to help. Christians are supposed to rise up and be the people that are help. The blessing of Him who was about to perish came upon me.

And listen, I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy. Can we say? Can I say that? How many widows have I caused to sing for joy? Yet this is pure and undefiled religion before the Lord. Not just to have your doctrine of justification all pat.

This is at the heart. So, shall we search out some of the causes? I mean, God help us to open our eyes. Not be like the priest.

Remember the priest and the Levite over against the Samaritan? Priest and the Levite, they come and see a guy with need and they walk by on the other side of the road. And brethren, how often do we do that? Oh, we may not see them actually in the street, but we see them. Or we don't see them because we don't want to see them.

We don't inform ourselves. Brethren, I can remember one time visiting Romania. And we were driving down a road and there's just open farms, fields of wheat.

And there's these two kids. And Sorin pulls over. And he jumps out and he goes over and he talks to these two children.

And then he comes back and he's got these really pathetic flowers that these kids obviously picked out of the field that were growing along the road or something. And he set them on the dash. So really, it seemed like the whole time we were there, there was this pile of flowers that he had on the dashboard.

And he got back in and he said, you know, after the Ceausescu years in communism, he said that the country was just rife with orphans. And he said these little kids are orphans and they come out here and they sell these flowers. And he said, you know, they don't have anything.

They're the cutest little kids. And he pulls over and he goes over and he buys their flowers and he gives them money. Have you heard about the horrors of the orphans in Romania? I remember one time driving through Bucharest and he was like pointing over and there's like manhole places and people are coming up in and out of there because a lot of the people live in the sewers.

A lot of these kids live in the sewers. And there was so much corruption and trafficking with regards to the people trying to adopt out of Romania that Romania now won't let Americans adopt. There's still ways to help them.

It is estimated. A lot of these numbers I'm going to give you are absolute estimations because nobody can actually know. But somebody's estimating based on some sort of information obviously.

But it is estimated there are more than 143 million orphans worldwide. That's more than Russia's entire population. I went to Kenya.

One of the reasons we chose Kenya is because it has one of the biggest slums in the world. It's called Kibera. After visiting there, I was made aware that there was a man in Kenya.

His name is Mully. M-U-L-L-Y. Maybe some of you've heard of this guy.

He was very wealthy and God got a hold of him. He was driving along in his car one day and God met with him and I mean turned his life upside down. He went and he told his very wealthy family, we're selling everything.

And he went out and he bought some land outside of Nairobi and he now goes into Nairobi at night and he finds these children and he takes them home. At first, he was taking them home and put them in his children's bedroom. And now the kids were crazy and they were jumping on the beds and they were doing all sorts of stuff.

And finally, he started this compound and it's really impressive what he's done. I mean, it's just a picture of God getting a hold of somebody's heart. That's true.

That's pure and undefiled religion right there. And you know what? When we go there, I was somewhat temporary and I've taken some guys from the church over in Manchester and some of the young men from here. We've gone over there.

Sam's patron stayed. He set up feeding programs for these people. He's done this in the Philippines as well.

And he's very effectively reaching impoverished children out of the slums. We can be involved in that. You can be involved in that.

You can go there. You see these children? You got to see people. If you really want a burden, go see people.

And you know what? You got computers. You can pull up YouTube and you can watch specials on these kinds of things. You can see the needs.

They figure there's perhaps three million orphans in Kenya. They figure that there are 39 million orphans in Africa. 17.5 million just in Nigeria.

Sam went to Nigeria. You can go there. You can get into these places.

One of the reasons that I have wanted people from our churches to travel with Sam is just so that our folks can see it is possible to say, you know what? I think I want to go help orphans in Kenya or Nigeria. And you can actually buy some tickets, figure out how to get the visa, and go. You can do that.

And I like our young people to see Sam in action and to recognize, wow, this isn't impossible. We need to think... There was another guy we used to support early on. His name is Tom.

He would do crazy things and fly all over needy places in the world. And he would gather up so many shipping containers that looked like the Wilkinson family traveling to Nepal. This guy will gather up like... He'll have some obscene amount of these huge plastic containers and he wraps them around with duct tape and he fills them full of all sorts of medical stuff and all sorts of gospel stuff and Bibles.

And he'll go some crazy place like Nigeria and he rents a vehicle and he throws them all in there and he gets out in the middle of nowhere and he's able to do it and he's able to pull these things off. I want us to be thinking that way. Thinking outside the box.

Brethren, you can read how the early church... You know what they did then? The typical practice of abortion didn't exist then. And so when these children were born in the Roman Empire, I mean, the father either gave thumbs up or thumbs down. And you can read that there was a competitiveness between the Christians and the traffickers to who would get to the children first.

Because they would just go set the child out by the road if the father gave a thumbs down. And then the Christians had their eyes open and they were ready to snatch those children and raise them in the truth. I know we don't have that, but what should we be doing? What can we be doing in our day? Many of you may remember Amy Carmichael.

Have you seen? I mean, some of you have your kids watching the torchlighters. Yeah, Amy Carmichael. And you see that she rescued children.

There's an actual Amy Carmichael cartoon. I was watching it with Josiah. And it's about the first little girl that she rescued.

She rescued over a thousand. That was one woman. Again, on Friday, we talked about... I'm thinking of Andy saying some people they know a hundred times less, but they do a thousand times more.

Some people just get... Brethren, this is said all the time, but you only get one shot at this life. And if true, an undefiled religion before the Lord is to be visiting these kinds of people in their affliction. And you know what? It's true.

Some may go and we put the money in their pocket and the prayers to our God to be wind in those sails. I recognize, brethren, there are ways that we can participate. We all have a different part to play.

And some of us undoubtedly will never leave this place. Many of us in this place will not go visit Kibera. But what can we do? I'll tell you this, you can pray that God will show you what can you do here.

How much should you be giving to this? And I'm not saying you've got to give here. I'm not saying you've got to give to GCC. There are many ways to give.

Now, you should be thinking when we have these business meetings, you ought to be thinking, is that a priority? Are our elders making that a priority? Because that should be a priority. If that's pure and undefiled religion before God, then that ought to be a priority in this church to be handling the needs of people and places. And I trust that if you look at where money goes, but you should be thinking about these things.

Where are we sending our money? What is James Dolly doing out there? Why do we send money over there? John comes back with these reports, but what are we doing with children in Nepal? What are we really doing? Well, we should be asking this. We should be looking at these things. You know about George Mueller? Over 10,000 children.

Ruby and I went to those Mueller homes. 31 million orphans in India. That's a 2014 figure.

They figure that there are 70,000 new AIDS orphans every single year in Africa. And you know what? The Gospel is moving through Africa. I preached a conference with Conrad Mbewe.

He said, right now, everything we touch turns to gold. Like they preach the Gospel, people are saved. They try a ministry over here, people are saved.

He said just literally everything they touch. And if orphans that don't have parents are to be shown mercy, because they don't have any provider, they don't have any protector. I mean, how about something that puts children in an even worse place than that? Mommy and daddy are very much alive, but they want you dead.

What about that? Is there a place? What do we do? Sometimes the whole thing just seems so overwhelming to me. Do you recognize that more than a million children were aborted last year, even though Roe v. Wade has been overturned? More than a million children have been basically dissected alive. Does that stop you sometimes and take your breath away? What should we do? What can we do? If orphans should be cared for by God's people, should we have some measure of concern here for children whose parents' purpose to have them ripped apart? Now they just want to be rid of the... I know that the abortion doctors are the ones that do that.

They just want to be rid of their problem. But brethren, we're supposed to visit people in their affliction. Do you think there's any place that is more afflictive than being in a womb of a mother that doesn't want you and is going to let a doctor go in there and suck you to pieces? I mean, if there is any affliction in the world, that is affliction.

And then we've just kind of touched Thailand recently. I remember John and Judy years ago, before the Paul Brown thing, they went and visited Thailand. And John and Judy went down to the beach.

And John said it was disgusting. He said all these western men walking around with these young ladies. Let me give you some idea.

You know what in that culture, much like we have in Nepal? Consumerism. You know what happens? Families see, and in Thailand in the last 20 years, all sorts of stuff that we're accustomed to, most Americans have been accustomed to for 75 years, are now becoming available to these people. But only if you've got money.

And you know what the traffickers are doing? They're catering to that. They come along. Well, if you'd like to have all these nice things, then let us take your daughter.

Now they lie. Let us take your daughter to the city, and we will get her cleaning jobs, and it will be good work, and she'll be able to take care of you. And so the families basically sell their daughters in what becomes the sex trafficking.

And the daughter herself and the families, they're promised that there's going to be this kind of stable employment that's going to be able to alleviate the family's poverty. But what happens, the children are exploited as sex slaves for money. They're sold into prostitution.

And it's not only that they're forced into prostitution. In that country, they have virtually no incentive to run away even if they had an opportunity. Why? Because the thing is that in that Theravada Buddhism, it's basically seen as a very noble thing to support your family despite the means.

And in fact, even if you've been involved in that, and then you want to go get married, that is usually no barrier to people wanting to marry you. Just because at one time, you were involved in the sex trade. And what they're doing is they're kidnapping kids from all over Southeast Asia, and they move them to Thailand because they're able to be so easily prostituted there from Myanmar and Cambodia and Vietnam, Laos.

Prostituted children, they are obviously at a high risk of catching infectious diseases and mental disorders. High risk of contracting HIV. Prostituted children that are infected with HIV are very prone to tuberculosis.

And prostituted girls likely to have cervical cancer. Prostituted children are likely to have long-term mental issues. And many of them, it hollows these children out.

They feel helpless, damaged goods, degraded, betrayed, shameful. There's a high risk of suicide among them. You know, young women are beaten in order to have miscarriages.

Now, it's outlawed, but it's still practiced very openly. They don't want to pay for a doctor to do it, so they beat the girls until they miscarry. It is figured that there are tens of thousands of children under 12 years old that are prostitutes in Thailand.

And one estimate suggests 800,000 girls between 12 and 16 years old in Thailand. You start looking at the numbers of widows. Somebody came up with a number.

How you'd ever come up with it, I have no idea, that there are 258 million widows in the world. And widows are typically, they're kind of the silent, forgotten, unseen, unsupported, uncounted, uncared for in many, many societies. And we know you get armed conflicts in the world.

You get people that are displaced, migration of people. You get disease. And then you get the fact that in most societies, women outlive men.

And so what happens? Widows are often denied inheritance. They have their property grabbed away at the death of a partner. They face extreme discrimination oftentimes.

And worldwide, women are just much less likely to have access to pensions and to even government assistance. In most countries. I'm not talking always about the U.S. I mean, the death of a spouse often means destitution for a woman.

And so my question to you is this, what then should the church do? I mean, if you start to just open your eyes, somebody created a film, maybe some of you have seen it, where a young guy, he's like a young partier, and he goes with friends to India. And suddenly he's aware of a guy in poverty that lost his daughter to the sex traffickers. And then this young guy takes it upon himself to try to get her back.

Have any of you seen that? You ought to watch things like that. Because you can't walk away unaffected. It's like, what are we going to do? And they made that movie on purpose to speak to us, to show us what's real out there, what's happening.

Brethren, should we not pray and strive that the religion of grace, community, church will be the kind of pure and undefiled religion that James speaks of and that God is looking for? Whatever we do, brethren, let us not be passive, silent, disinterested, cold, apathetic. If we are, then what? What does it say about our religion? It says we don't have the religion that is pure and undefiled before God. Brethren, how does this make you feel? I'll tell you how it makes me feel.

I've had times, I can remember driving over on I-10. And I felt a burden to help in the affliction that little children facing abortion. Sometimes these things come upon me in such waves of concern and it's almost overwhelming.

And I'm pleading with the Lord, show us what to do, show us what to do. I mean, oftentimes, I just feel like the needs are staggering. But how do we help? What can I do? And sometimes our first thought can be, this is just overwhelming.

Brethren, it is overwhelming. But our God is big. And remember, I wanted to sing that song on purpose a little as much when God is in it.

Remember this. You just think, oh, there's too many obstacles. But here comes Jesus.

I know your works. Behold, I've set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut. I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept My Word and have not denied My name.

And if you're not going to deny His name, then you're going to be involved in orphans and widows. They made another movie. You see the one where the guy was in one of the intelligence departments, I think, in this country.

And he ended up going to South, I believe it was Columbia, and he rescued those kids. Any of you see that one? That's a true story. Brethren, you start watching some of that, and you start seeing what's happening out there.

What can we do? What should we do? He opens doors. Is it too expensive? Are we going to say it's too expensive for our God? It's too hard. It's too far away.

I've got other things to do. I've got other things to think about. And what does it do to your thoughts and your feelings when you hear that God says, true and undefiled religion is to visit orphans and widows? To visit them in their affliction? To me, it staggers me, and it often takes my breath away.

And I've tried to do these little things, but it never feels like it's enough. And we went and looked at Mueller's orphanages, and it's just like, Lord, what should we be doing? What should the church be doing? How do we wake up to this? What is it? There's something in me that wants to love like Jesus loved and die to self and escape my comfort zones. Any of you feel that? It's like we've got to get out of here.

We've got to break out of these things. Everything is too soft. Everything is just too nice.

I mean, have you heard Brother Andy speak of this? He's driving down the road there in China, and he's like, I came here to be the next Hudson Taylor, and I came here to train men and to plant churches. And here's his wife looking out the window at a woman who's caught in the grating in a wheelchair, and she's like a burden. Christ's compassion worked up in her, and she wants to get out and help.

And Andy locks the door. And eventually got to a place where he recognized that's the thing that melts people's heart. And it is, brethren.

We want to see people saved. But so often, what is it? It's the compassion of Christ that just melts people. Watch what is happening in Lebanon.

Is God moving? Yes. In strange, mysterious ways. Yes.

But you see what John and his family have been doing and the others that are working over there, the compassion, they have been giving, giving, giving, giving, giving. John, he has seen so many of these young ladies converted that he first began working with in India, now in Nepal. And what John has given and given and given, and he sought to care for them, suddenly recognizes, you know what it took to melt the hard Chinese hearts? It was the demonstration of the compassion.

What the world needs, folks, is to see this living, breathing expression of sacrifice and humility that was found in Christ. And how do we become like Christ? We behold His glory. You go to the Scripture, you go to the pages of this book, and you behold the glory of the Lord as He went about.

And He touched. He touched the sinners. He healed the people.

He touched the leper. He got close, real close, and He got His hands dirty. That's what you want to look at, because the Apostle Paul said, you behold that kind of glory, and you know what? From one degree of glory to another, that image is going to begin to come into the fabric of your very being.

That's what we need. Jesus came along and He said, you know what? You need to let your light shine before men. They're going to see your good works and they're going to give glory to God.

You know what? This is what God wants because it brings Him so much glory. Why? Because the fallen race of Adam is what? They're selfish, hating, and hateful. That's man by nature.

And so what does He do? He touches us by His grace and His power, and He changes us. See, we're predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ. And what's the image of Christ? It's going around in this world and it's doing good and showing good.

What people see... Brethren, when people see you, what do they see? They see, well, you know, kind of middle class America. Or do they see Jesus? And we can become so much products of our own place and time and our own culture. Brethren, what we want people to see etched on our soul is what? These manifestations of Christ.

That's what we want them to see. His kindness, His gentleness, His mercy, His courage, His self-denial. That's what we want them to see.

Brethren, that doesn't happen just by coming to church. That comes as you behold Him and walk with Him and spend time with Him and really study what did He do with His life? How serious was He about following me? What does that have to do with widows? And what does that have to do with orphans? And what does it have to do with people in prison and the sick? And what does it have to do with all of this? Brethren, we have to ask ourselves, does the world look at us and see something of Him in me? Like when it comes to these things? Brethren, I'll tell you this, the world, they smell hypocrisy. They know when we're not real.

They know when, well, we kind of go do this, but our heart isn't in it. You know, you got the lost guy there and you're kind of looking over his shoulder because you just kind of want him to go. They know that.

They smell that whole thing. They know if you don't really care. Christ, He got right next to men.

Right where they were. And you remember the message from last week? I'm going to talk about fruit just here right at the end. I want to go to Luke, not Mark.

Listen to this, As for what fell among the thorns, they're those who hear, but as they go on their way, they're choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature. You know what good fruit is? You ever want to know what fruit? You know when Jesus says that you shouldn't lay up treasure here, but lay it up in heaven? Well, you think that, how do you do it? How do you get your money there? How do you get the kind of fruit that God is interested in? Well, you visit orphans and widows in their affliction, obviously. Obviously, you can't disconnect that from what James said.

But here's the thing, farmers don't plant seed with any other object in mind than to receive back a crop. You farmers don't purposely throw their seed on the sidewalk. Bird lovers might.

Farmers don't. Farmers want fruit. And the reality is, that when you get all smothered by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, there's no good fruit there.

Farmers plant seed to get a crop, to get fruit, to get a harvest. If you want to properly estimate the quality of the soil, you have to wait until you observe whether there's either failure or success in the seed to bring forth fruit. That's always the case.

If the gospel seeds scatter, and it brings forth compassion and purity, according to James 1.27, that's fruit. And you know what? Jesus doesn't ascribe the word good to any soil, except for soil that bears fruit. Remember that.

That's the only good soil. By Jesus' own interpretation. It's that simple.

And what chokes the soil from being able to produce good fruit? Cares. Riches. Pleasures.

What's that? Worries. Anxieties. That's what cares are.

Riches. Just stuff. Your stuff.

Money. Pleasures. Fun.

Mark says desire for other things. Other than what? Obviously, other than desires for the kinds of things that God would have you desire. The worldly stuff.

That's what chokes. Brethren, how much are you being choked from visiting orphans and widows in their affliction because of those very things? Are you going to get to the end of your life? Well, you know, I put forth a lot of effort to get a nice house. Put forth a lot of effort to live in a certain neighborhood.

Put forth a lot of effort to drive that car. Have you been putting forth as much effort to visit orphans and widows in their affliction? And you say, no, as a matter of fact, I haven't. Then is there a possibility that you are being choked? And I recognize this is broader than this, but we're talking about the orphans and the widows.

Oh, the thorns of homes and wanting and desiring more, more, more. Eager to get stuff, eager to keep, eager to increase, worried about money, just driven by money, growing richer, but your soul is growing poorer. And it's just, brethren, this generation wastes so much time, so worried, so much amusement, so much idleness, so much laziness.

Many have such good intentions, but constantly they're getting choked and stamped out, smothered by excessive amusement, trifling stuff. Thorns murder God-glorifying acts. Sometimes we need to draw a line in the sand and say, enough! I've got one life to live, and it is not to get as much stuff as possible.

It's not to get the nicest house possible. It's not to send my kids to the best school possible. I've got one life to live.

Christ bids me to follow in His tracks. And you hear what's being said. When we have so much time, what's consumed, spent, choked, obliterated by the thorns, it can never be used for Christ.

So what do we do? I'll tell you this. Many of you probably don't know this. John doesn't celebrate this.

Do you know John has a non-profit called Compassion for Freedom? Let me tell you something about that. John supports Bola on the border, who is seeking to rescue trafficked children. John supports a blind school on the border of India and Myanmar.

You sometimes hear him mention the name Darjoy. There's orphans there. Blind orphans.

You know John has a boy's hostel that may be kind of in the motion to move to Pokhara. He's got the girls' orphanage. You know Rebecca, Passion for the Poor, hundreds and hundreds of orphans in Myanmar.

HeartCry is working with an orphanage in Cambodia. Probably in other places as well, but I at least know about that. In Thailand, Susan Brown wants to pour herself.

Sam Patron spent time in the slums of the Philippines, has spent time in the slums of Kenya. And right now he's in the States. Thirsty ground.

Now John isn't specifically targeting orphans, but he certainly is targeting the children of Muslim families. And he's helping in many other ways. These are opportunities that we have.

There's Christian Compassion Ministries that's in Manila. That was Brian Ellis, Kubeo Reformed Baptist. Brethren, what can we do? I'll tell you one thing you can start doing is, Lord, open some doors.

Show me what I should do. Brethren, I would say one of the places we can start is we can pray more and we can give more. As Americans, prayer.

Did you read there the one? I think about certain Christians when it says little is much when God is in it. And there's one stanza there that deals with you if you're sick, if you're bedridden, and how you can pray. I think it is said of Amy Carmichael that for the last decade of her life, she was bedridden and prayed.

All the effectual prayers, effectual fervent prayers of a righteous man or woman, they avail much. Can we give? Lay up your treasure in heaven, folks. Lay it up there.

Not in the stuff of this earth. You think of how many things you are going to have to let go when you die. And then what are they going to be? Don't waste this opportunity for you to invest your life this way.

Brethren, God has a heart for these people. And what He wants is for His church to be His hands and feet here. There's no question about that.

Oh, God can do things without us. But you see, this is what He wants us to do. He wants to supply needs in this world.

As Sam runs all over, and he ministers to people, you know what he does? He looks back at Christianity in the United States. And he says if verses like James 1.27 are real, he said, I suspect that a lot of the Christianity in the United States is not real. And whatever you want to say about Francis Chan, Sam said to me, I love the guy, in the sense that he stood up in Simi Valley before all these rich, young Calvinists, and he said, my great concern is that many of you, maybe the majority of you, don't know the Lord.

Why? Because of verses just like this. Brethren, these have to lay hold of. We are to be real, true expressions of Christ in this world.

If Christ bodily was here, what would He call us to do? And you know, you know it's not just to play church and be Sunday Christians. It's not that. This is what we're called to.

Pure and undefiled religion. Oh brethren, I want that for us. What's the path ahead? How can we engage this term visit? A hundred fold from what we're doing right now.

Like I say brethren, it doesn't mean giving here. You feel like you need to give more, you can go to websites where these people's places are, to their churches. Because we should be the most lavish, sacrificial givers on the face of this earth.

Think, He who was rich beyond measure, had this glory with His Father before the beginning of this world, He became poor. So that we in all of our poverty might be made rich. Brethren, what kind of people ought we to be then? Father, I pray something of this resonates with me.

Lord, I want that religion that is pure and undefiled before You. I want my brothers and sisters to have it. I pray this in Christ's name, Amen.