James No.4 Pure Religion

In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zion. The people of Bethel have sent Seraphia and Ruth and Melech together with their men to entreat the Lord by asking the truth of the house of the Lord Almighty and the prophets. Should I mourn and fast in the fifth month as I have done for so many years? Ask all the people of the land and the truth.

When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for the past seventy years, was it really for me that you fasted? And when you were eating and drinking, were you not just feasting for yourself? Are these not the words of the Lord proclaimed through the earlier prophets, when Jerusalem and its surrounding towns were at rest and prosperous, and the nether and the western foothills were settled? And the word of the Lord came again to Zechariah. This is what the Lord Almighty says. Administer true justice.

Show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. In your hearts do not think evil of each other.

But they refused to pay attention. Suddenly they turned their backs and shut up their ears. They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the Lord Almighty had sent by His Spirit through the earlier prophets.

So the Lord Almighty was very angry. When I called, they did not listen. So when they called, I would not listen, says the Lord Almighty.

I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations where they were strangers. The land was left so desolate behind them that no one could come and go. This is how they made the pleasant land desolate beyond serenity.

This is what James in the first chapter, the twenty-second verse. Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.

Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and after looking at himself goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard but doing it, he will be blessed in what he does. If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless.

The religion that God our Father accepts is pure and faultless is this, to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. One of the pleasures of being a pastor is that when you move into people's homes and they have young children and pretend that you are relating well to the youngsters, you can play with their toys and sometimes quite enjoy it, as also is illustrated by one of our sites, the number of which should remain anonymous. And when I was visiting them the other day, discussing that we had a model railway down in the cellar of the tabernacle, it was to also find that the boys never really got a look in in sending the trains round the clock.

I only saw the leaders ever operating the instruments, the dials. Well, ostensibly I did the same sort of thing when I visit. And one of my young friends, David, when I was visiting him some while ago, he let me play with his oxen man.

Now you may never have seen an oxen man, but it's a very realistic part. A perfect miniature of a muscular, well-trained individual, a combatant. Ready for anything.

And David, who seemed to be very knowledgeable about such things, displaced my ignorance by informing me that I could purchase one myself and get many different forms of clothing to dress the oxen man in. Well, I haven't yet closed my pocket up, so to do, but I was glad to be satisfied with what was, for him, a very perfect horse, his oxen man. Perhaps a little more in my line was a book handed to me just this last week which gives the story of the SAS, the Special Air Service, which was brought into play in London in something that we shall never forget, I reckon, just a few months ago when William Walshmore asked these men to help in the release of certain hostages, certain prisoners in one of the embassies.

And this SAS, this special unit, turned around this crack group of oxen men who put into practice their skills and successfully released the hostages. And I'm told as I read this book of their history, from Colonel Richard, or Colonel David Stirling, who was the founder of this movement, I'm told of what their objectives are. From the start, Stirling writes, the SAS Regiment has had some firmly held tenets from which we never depart, and they can be summarised as follows, I quote, too.

The unrelenting pursuit of excellence, the maintaining of the highest standards of discipline in all aspects of daily life, is the only effective foundation for the regiment. The unrelenting pursuit of excellence, the maintaining of the highest standards of discipline. It seems to me that what the SAS is to our government, the curse of Jesus Christ should be to God Almighty, peopled by oxen men.

The motto of the SAS, which is the title of the book, as it records their history in the last two or three decades, is, Who dares win? Who dares win? And when I come to the epistle of James, and see what he has to say in these final verses of the opening chapter, with the concept of the Christianship being God's act in man, the motto from the 22nd and the 25th verses, it seems to be, He who believes, does. He who believes, does. Or, if you like, to vary it a little, He who does, pleases.

He who does, pleases. For James writing instruction to the emerging church at Jerusalem, and all who shall have a copy of this letter close in their hands, it makes clear the main thrust in the 22nd verse, Be ye doers of the word, and not doers only, deceiving your own self. When you read the final verses of the opening chapter, you come across, in the last verse, a rather remarkable definition of what pure religion is.

And preceding that statement, it seems to me from the 22nd to the 26th verses, are two pictures of so-called Christians. One picture that emerges is of a spiritual phony, if you can use the adjective spiritual in such a way as that. And the other that emerges is of the actual man as he should really be.

The one is of the person who believes but does not practice, the other is of the person who both believes and practices. And he who does, pleases God. In fact, it would be true to say that the Lord Jesus Christ has no time at all for those who believe and don't practice.

Listen to our Lord under some of the words. I'm reading from the Living Bible, and it's Matthew 7.21. The way to identify a tree or a person is by the kind of fruit produced. Not all who talk like godly people are godly.

They may refer to me as Lord, but still won't get to heaven, for the decisive question is whether they obey my Father in heaven. He who does, pleases. The man who obeys is the one who brings treasure to the heart of God.

And you can't be an action man. You can't be in the special air service of the Church of God and not do, not put into action those things that you claim to believe. So then, before you come to that final definition of what a practical application of pure religion really involves, in these verses that we're looking at, two pictures emerge.

One of the religious faith, and the other of the religious purist. Let's look, then, at the first photograph that we discover in these verses. The picture is found placed out for us in the 23rd and the 24th.

Let me read it again. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror, and after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. That's a religious faith.

That's a religious phony. There's a man who's preached on this pulpit years ago, and I remember meeting him on a couple of occasions. Father Neil Herbert Lockyer.

He authors a number of books that all seem to have the same title, inasmuch as they commenced all this of the Bible, all the women of the Bible, all the countries of the Bible, all the parables of the Bible. One book that Lockyer has still to write is all the faith of the Bible. All the faith of the Bible.

If you were to make a list of religious phonies, of people who were masquerading as being spiritual, I wonder who you'd include in the catalog. Cain, as he brings a phony sacrifice to the Lord. King Saul, as he brings a phony offering.

Judas, as he makes a phony commitment to Christ. Jonah, who reckons to be dedicated to the evangel and yet, well, he tried to tickle him, and reduced him to the level of a fake. All the faith of the Bible.

But that belief proliferates. It continues down the centuries. I do not wish to be harsh, but truth will out.

We have that sort of person in the 20th century. The religious phony. And he's described as a person who hears the word but doesn't do it.

He's described as a man who looks into a glass and beholds his face and sees all the defects and takes no remedial action at all. Look at two aspects of the picture that James paints regarding the religious faith. There are those who hear and don't perform.

Those who hear and don't perform. That's what the 22nd verse seems to indicate, doesn't it? Be doers of the word and not hearers only. Because if you hear and you don't perform, then you're not really right in your relationship with the Lord.

A religious faith can occupy a few, can be in church for a decade or two decades, can rave about great features, can have been under the scintillating ministry of the most eloquent Bible expositors and yet never have been affected in their hearts by the essence of the gospel. Those who hear but do not do. That's one aspect of the identity picture of a religious faith.

But not only is it a question of hearing and not performing, but also seeing and not correcting. Look at the 23rd verse. If any be a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is right unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass, for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgets what manner of man he was.

That's not exactly the same picture as the first one that James paints in the 22nd verse. He's referred to the man who hears and doesn't do. Now he develops the illustration.

He's talking about the man who hears and sees himself in the word as it speaks and yet with a shrug of the shoulders, goes out from the throne of the church and applies no correctness to his personality at all. I was visiting a lady just a few days ago, a lady I love very much indeed. And she was crying.

And I said to her, what's the matter? She's in a nursing home in Worthing and she's got a malignant disease. And she said, well, Pastor, I know it sounds silly, but I've looked at myself in a mirror for the first time in two months. And that face, which used to be a very noble face, skin rather tightly drawn across the cheekbones, has now given way to a limp, hanging skin and feather.

And the hair, which was always so well looked after, is now somewhat saddened. And this poor soul saw herself in the mirror and she said, you know, I see I look like the very devil himself. And I tried to deal, pastorally and kindly with her and assured her that with the eyes that speak doubt, no matter what seems to have happened with her face, if they look up, they look up a face and just no need to worry at all.

But the fact of the matter was, she was affected by what she saw. And there are people who masquerade religious faith, who see something of ugliness in their personality as the word is preached and they shrug their shoulders and they go away and they're exactly the same as what they were when they came this year. And Sunday, last year, and last decade, it makes no difference.

They listen mentally, but there is no acquisition of the word of God into the fabric of their personality so that it can form their religious faith. He hears, verse 22, and he doesn't perform. He sees, verse 23, and he doesn't correct.

He speaks, verse 26, and he doesn't control. If any man among you seem to be religious and blitheless not his tongue but deceive at his own heart, this man's religion is vain. Or as the NIV puts it, if anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless.

James is very concerned, isn't he, about the tongue. He's made reference to it before in the 19th verse. He's going to spend a whole chapter on it when you come to the third one in this book.

And his gist of thinking, his thesis, the basis to his thesis is this. That a man who has confessed Jesus as Lord and has known himself over his tongue, a man who speaks and yet doesn't correct in any way the flow of language, the flow of criticism, is one who's not the writer. He's a fake.

A religious fake. For the man who fights hard with his words, the man who is disagreeably critical and cynical, far from reproducing the characteristics of Jesus, is yielding to his own adamant nature and indicating that there is little, if any, worth of grace in his life. The tongue is the hardest thing to console and it's the most powerful weapon in which damage can be done, with which damage can be done.

This is why James, writing what I told you was probably the earliest letter ever to be penned and circulated around Christian communities, deals so much with his tongue. Tell me that you're filled with the Spirit and you'll speak authoritatively and winsomely when it's obvious that your tongue is under control because you see, the man who's Spirit-filled is the man who reproduces something of Jesus Christ and his speech is Joseph and Stephen the Saint. The identity picture of the religious faith.

He hears, but he doesn't perform. He loves theology. He has chairman's by the cartload.

He's not necessarily a time-watcher. All he does is dot the i's and cross the t's and ensures that the teacher has got an accurate theological scheme. He hears, but he doesn't perform.

He sees, but he doesn't collect. He speaks, but he doesn't console. And the net result is a grotesque caricature of what he should be, but he isn't because he's a fraud.

He's a phony. He's a religious faith. So we move over to the more positive angle of James' very powerful teaching.

From the religious faith, we see by way of contradistinction, by way of contrast, emerging the identity picture of the religious theorist. And you must look at the 25th verse and the 27th verse to get the picture intact. Who shall looketh into the perfect law of liberty and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the word, this man shall be blessed in his deed.

Notice that both in the A.V. and likely in the N.I.V., the 25th verse, there starts with a conjunction. That's a little grammatical term that introduces a word of contrast. But, on the one hand, there's the faith.

Here is the reality. On the one hand, there is the phony, but this is the genuine. The opposite to the religious faith, the man who must arrange is the one who has the characteristics listed in the 25th and the 27th verses.

And this man has perception in the way that he studies the word of God. Verse 27, he has compassion in the way that he looks upon his brothers and sisters in the church. He has, the latter part of verse 27, consecration in his determination to serve the law of God.

Inwardly, he's perceptive as he exposes his mind to the word of God. Outwardly, he's compassionate as he ministers to the orphans and to the widows. Upwardly, he wants consecration as he endeavors to keep an intimate relationship with the Lord.

If the identity picture is clear in your mind of the religious faith, how much more, if God be gracious, do I want to impress upon your memory the facets, the features, the necessary qualifications of the religious purist. He's a man of the book. He's a man for other people.

He's a man for God. Come to the 25th verse. And here, again, I read from the NIV having just quoted the AV to keep the balance.

But the man who looks intensely into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it, he will be blessed in what he does. Did you notice the word, the way the verbs of action come out in the NIV's translation? Take it again. It's worth your second blessing.

The man who looks intensely into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it, he will be blessed in what he does. The emphasis. You can't mistake it.

John, or rather, James, is saying that the man who's active, who's one of the equivalent, the decrees of the SAS, in God's estimation, is a man who delves into this book. He comes and he inquires intently. That verb, intently, is found in John's gospel when we have Peter and his friend moving into the tomb where the Lord Jesus had been placed, that has been raised from the dead.

And they go, and they inquire, and they look, and they take in every detail of what is to be seen in that empty sepulchre, the folded breadcrumbs, the fact that there's no body. They look intensely. They take it all in.

So is a man who is a religious purist. He comes to this book, and he searches this book. He sifts the scriptures.

He hides it in his heart. He continues as a Bible student. The pursuit of biblical knowledge was never restricted to those who are preachers.

The pursuit of biblical knowledge is embraced by the whole body of Christ. He not only looks into the perfect law of liberty, he continues in the Bible. And he doesn't forget, on a Monday, on a Tuesday, what he's learned on a Sunday.

Indeed, if he's in a right relationship with God, he'll be looking into this book on a Monday and on a Tuesday, and he'll work out its principles when he's in the office, when he's dealing with his children, when he's relating to his wife. He's a doer of the world. For he who does pleases.

That is the maxim of the S.A.S., service of God. He who does pleases. And for a man who pleases God, no blessing.

So the latter part of the twenty-fifth verse, this man shall be blessed in his deeds. What's the first facet of a religious purist? He's a man of the book. He's a man with perfection.

And he works out the truth of scripture inwardly. But he doesn't stop there. Of course he doesn't.

And so James comes and he defines for us what are the basic realities one looks for in pure religion. Verse twenty-seven. And notice James surprises us.

He doesn't say that the man who is a pure religionist is the man who's taking a hundred fracks down the high streets and distributing them. Not that that doesn't come into James' estimate of a sincere Christian. But he's conservative with working out what has been received in scripture in terms of relationships within the body of Christ.

If I love the Lord my God with all my heart, with all my strength, with all my soul, then I'm going to love my brother, particularly my brother and my sister in Christ. Also with all the emotions and all the activity that I can demonstrate. So James says if anyone considers himself to be really religious then he will look after orphans and widows in their distress.

James is just giving his full assertion. There's a whole list that he could have tabulated but he doesn't. He stops at orphans and widows.

He says that those who really are men and women of the book have a concern for the rest of the body of Christ. See how eminently practical James is. Religion is not just a mental thing.

It's not just an attitude of the brain, of the heart. Religion is something that so fires a person that he or she wants to demonstrate the love of God to those who are in need. So there's a test that is to be tried as to whether you're a religious purist or not.

What's your attitude to others? You see, God is the God of the fatherless. God is the God of the orphan. You find that time and time again in the Psalms.

You find it in the reading that Brother Richard brought to us earlier from Nehemiah. Now, if I know this God, if I encounter this God in His Word, if His Word is placed in my heart, then the very characteristics of this God, in part, will be reproduced in my personality. And I'll have a love for others.

And my home will be open for others. And my pocket will be open for others. My heart will be open for others.

Because God has called us together in community. And the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts from one Christian brother to another Christian brother. So a way with Christian insularity, it doesn't exist.

We are called to federate together, the stronger helping the weaker. Those who have little being helped by those who have much, both spiritually and materially. Because God has instructed to us all the care of one another.

A religious purist is a man of the boat inwardly. He's a man for others outwardly. And what's more, he's a man for God upwardly.

Look at the latter part of verse 27. The religion that God our Father accepts is pure and false, which is this, to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. James is going to have more to say about that, so I can reserve my comments for another occasion.

But in truth, what he is arguing is simply this. That the man who is a religious purist wants to live a life that brings honor and glory to the Lord in every way. You see my friend, let's take it again.

The religious saint is the man who hears but he doesn't do. And you must admit, we have those in the 20th century. Ask yourself as to whether we've got them in the tab or whether you're one of them.

Ask yourself. A man who hears but he doesn't do. A man who sees but he doesn't correct.

A man who speaks but he doesn't console. The identikit picture of a religious saint. But on the other hand, there's the religious purist, the man of the book.

Inwardly, he digests it. Outwardly, he manifests its teachings. Outwardly, he has a desire for God and to be holy as God is holy.

Says one commentator, rather bitterly, a good thing in the morning service is just hot air unless our warm religious feeling is spilt over into the pew. Says another Scottish commentator, what is heard in the holy place is to be lived out in the marketplace. The SAS's motto is, Who dares wins.

The equivalent to the SAS in the sight of God surely is the Christian church and our maxim is, He who does, pleases. Hitler said of the SAS in the war, These men are dangerous. They are to be hunted down and destroyed at all times.

And the religious purist is a dangerous person in this world. Dangerous as far as the forces of evil and unrighteousness are concerned. It's in that Christ's regimen that I want everybody here, including myself, to belong.

Not religious saints. Not phony. Not sermon tasters.

But those who do. Those who act. Those who speak with the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Well, what shall it be then, my friend, this morning? Religious quattery? Perish the thought. Religious purity. May pure, unadulterated, biblical religion be the experience of everyone within this lovely sanctuary.

Amen. Father, the singing is relatively easy. And maybe the preaching is not as hard as all that.

But the outworking of what James has to say, so difficult. Purify my lips. Purify my tongue.

Purify my heart. Inwardly, outwardly, upwardly. I would be thine alone.

Father, help us. And forgive us when, from time to time, the phony has crept in and displaced something of the purest. Help us to fit into the second picture and carve out of our personalities any resemblance to the first.

For Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.