Address—H. Short
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#12 in the back of the book what though the accuser or bills that I have done?
I know them well. And thousands more Jehovah.
Find.
Could someone start #12 please?
At all the accuser.
I have done.
I know them well.
And all turns more.
Every child of God can sing this hymn and truth, and that not one of us will cross those courts of glory with our heads hung in shame because we will cross those portals.
In all the beauty of Christ.
By the grace of God, and if such a wonderful, wonderful relationship and position that he who believes in Jesus comes into justified by our God, let's pray.
Lord Jesus, we thank thee for thou hast.
Where the victor's crown and we thy redeemed are accepted in thee we ask for help. As we open thy holy precious word this evening, we ask it in thy worthy name Enough.
Well, we will go back to the book of James, Chapter one.
Just by way of review, we're looking at this book, which really isn't particularly Christian in character yet, as the first book coming out of the Christian profession through the probably through the Apostle James. It gives us foundation truths that we need to imbibe in our lives.
In order to go on into the deeper.
Revelations. That.
Were given to the Apostle Paul from heaven by God himself. And so as we look at the book of James.
As another has said, and I believe rightly so, the exhortations given in this book could properly apprise to a godly Jew at any time, except for two verses in the last chapter, which, if the Lord tarries and permits, we will look at at that time.
But what I I have on my heart is to impress upon our souls that the very first message.
That came from the Christian profession placed their emphasis.
On works accompanying the faith that Christianity professed to offer.
And James presses it, as I said, I think.
Some maybe?
15 times.
Works are mentioned and perhaps 13 or so faith is mentioned and James says you separate them.
In your life you do not have the faith that is characteristic and peculiar to Christianity.
And so it's remarkable to me because in the last epistle written to these people.
Not the 12 tribes, but from among the 12 tribes. The book of Hebrews. The Apostle Paul says you need to be purged.
Not from dead faith, but from dead works.
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And you need to move on.
To other things. And so it shows. Doesn't it present how treacherous our hearts are? Or we will grab a an aspect of truth and set it against another aspect of truth. Remember, we do not need to balance it. It would be good if we could in our mind.
Omid in our expressions, the thought that James balances Paul or Paul, that the word of God needs no balancing at any in any part of its book. We are the ones that need balancing. And so I might say I like James and and stay there and I will be a deformed Christian.
And you might say you like Paul and you are a Paul and stay there and you will be a deformed Christian. I enjoyed what a new convert to Christ told a sister. She urged her to start in the book of John and read John's gospel in this newborn. Babe said no, the Bible begins with Genesis, and that's where I'm going to begin.
And she did.
You need every book of God's Word to balance you.
Not to balance the word of God. It needs no balance. So with those remarks, let's return to the first chapter of the book of James.
And we commented in verse 10 about the rich rejoicing, because he is made low, because as the flower of grass he shall pass away, for the sun could be translated, has risen and with burning heat.
And withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth. So shall the rich man fade away in his ways. Now you know I was raised a poor man. I, I, I was born on the wrong side of the tracks. I never seem to be able to get on the other side of the track. So I I could find a special comfort in this verse. And say, boy, the Lord is really putting the rich man in his place, You know, beloved.
The flower has risen, the the sun has risen upon you.
Doesn't matter whether you're rich or poor. I remember looking at some pictures of a wedding that I had attended and I saw this man and I wondered in my mind, who is that old, that older man. I don't remember seeing him. And then I realized I was looking at the back of my own head. You see, the sun has risen, I am withering. And you are withering too, beloved.
Read your poor It doesn't matter. But the rich man rejoices because he has found in faith in Christ.
That what he thought was so valuable is of no value at all, and that he has now by faith in Christ through riches. Do you have those riches, and are you rejoicing in your riches that you have in Christ? Beloved, this life which we are so concerned about, the sun has risen apart, and we are withering that you know, here I am.
Getting on in years and the heroes of my youth when I was a young man, before I was converted, those idols in my life, many of them are gone, Cut off tragically in their youth. My generation fathered the Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe and you can go on down the list.
The flower, the sun has risen and we are withering. And so don't waste your time living for that flower. As beautiful as they were in their youth. They all withered, they all faded and they all are dead.
Grasp it, beloved. It's important You'll never progress in the things of God as long as you're wasting your life pursuing that which the sun has risen upon and is withering away. That's the quote from Isaiah 40, where, as here in our chapter, the emphasis is going to turn on the eternal.
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Benefit of being born.
Of the word of God, which is settled forever and for eternity. So we need to grasp this in our life where we're not going to make spiritual progress and you'll waste your life and come to the end of your day. I read a comment or heard a comment somewhere of a man of my generation who had come to the end of his days, and he said it's awful, it's awful. It's awful.
He wasted his life. Oh beloved, don't do that. Who cares if the follower has been withered? We have something that is not corruptible. Well, he says. Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, And that's up to verse 12. The temptations mentioned in this chapter are from God. They're trials that God has sent. We'll read a little bit more about them later.
Chapter to Perfect faith to help us to learn endurance or patience in our life. And as we noticed last week, I think we all would have to acknowledge we don't really know much about patients and we're not really anxious to learn about it either by means of trial. But God loves us, and he sees that we don't value the faith He's given us. He does, and he sees that faith in US. And he says, I'm going to take an interest in you and oh.
You know Job when God took up Job to teach him endurance and patience.
And God took him up, Job says. Leave me alone, God.
Leave me alone, he said. Why is ma'am? Why are you? Why are you troubling yourself with men? With me? I wish that I had been as one stillborn. I wished I had perished in my mother's womb rather than have you taken interest in me in this way. He didn't mind God taking an interest in him when God was prospering him, giving him a lovely, happy family that could have banquets and fun together and multiply him to make him one of the richest, wisest men of his generation.
He wasn't complaining about the Lord taking an interest in him then, but the Lord put his hand on him and put him into trial and and I'm not faulting Job, I would have gone in the first chapter, wouldn't have taken 40. I would have given up way before Job gave up.
Well, beloved, I don't mean I would have learned the lesson before Job learned it. I would have complained much louder before Joe complained. So.
The Lord is taking an interest in you. He's passing you through through trials. He says, oh, bless it or happy is the man that endures this trial. That is, you don't faint under it. You don't say what's the use and give up. You know, how many do you know in your life who came into the assembly? And they were happy and enjoying the truth that God had opened to their heart and mind. But as soon as the sun came up and the trials came on, they said.
This is no place for me. This is no place for me. Oh, in my life I thought, oh, I could only get free. But in my heart I knew there was no place to go. And Peter and his and the Lord's disciples said that to the Lord, he said, Will you go away? He said, Lord, to whom shall we go? Well, we want to endure these interests that God has taken in US in the form of trial.
And not faint under them. And then I'm going to misread verse 12. Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, for when he has tried, he shall receive the crown of life.
Which the Lord hath promised to them that love him a lot.
Is that what it says?
To them that love him a lot. Someone was talking to me about the Remnant within the Remnant and a faithful Remnant. I thought, well, I hope there isn't any such thing. But if there is, I sure won't qualify to make that circle, you know? And I felt like it's in the army, you know? And I was in the Army. I knew there was such a thing as the Airborne and the Green Beret.
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But I knew like there's.
Helicopter mechanics because I wouldn't have made the grades, you know it and.
Oh, may we just?
Not.
Give up and think that God is only for those who love him a lot. You know, we are one bit better than Peter. Peter said Lord, as it were. We've heard it before and it's true. The Lord said you love me. Peter, I do love you. I love you the more than all the other Saints you've ever redeemed. And if they forsake you, I'm going to death with you.
I have a wonderful confidence in Peter's love, but life as a way of manifesting what we really are, you know, that's what the wilderness did to the children of Israel. And it's what the wilderness does to us, isn't it? I can remember before I was saved thinking, you know, if the Lord really does save me, he's going to get a pretty good specimen. You know what I think now?
I'm a 0 less than a 0.
No, it's not for those who love him a lot, It's just for those who love him in some way or another. We come down like Peter had to come to and said Lord, I like to think that Peter himself said that maybe I don't love you Lord, but you do know I do love you. And how many times in our lives, especially those of us who are older, we've been gothic, the Lord in that way and said Lord Jesus.
I don't know if I love you at all the way the poor way in which I go on, but this just says for those that love him, well let's go and look at verse 13 where the temptations change in character. Let no man say when he is tempted I am tempted of God. He had just been speaking about being tempted of God. Now he says don't say you're tempted of God, it's because this temptation.
Is of a different character and from a different source altogether.
This temptation comes from our lustful, willful, disobedient hearts. And God does not tempt us ever, ever, ever to sin. And so it says here, God cannot be tempted with evil or by evil things, and neither tempteth he any man. So you have a problem in your life with some sin.
And you find yourself exposing yourself to that sin God.
Or to circumstances that will surely lead you into the practice of their sin. That temptation, and it's there, then permeates the world. There's something in the world to allure your heart away from Christ, no matter who you are or no matter what you like to do. The world is Satan's masterpiece, and he's left no heart without something in his world.
To draw your affections away from Christ. Christ does not expose you to those worlds.
Those temptations. Your own heart does that. And so it says.
Every man in verse 14 is tempted by this kind of a temptation, that is, a temptation to sin. When he is drawn away of his own lust, you realize what it says here, beloved.
You're tempted to sin when your wife provokes you, No?
Oh yeah, I got angry. But you should have heard what my wife said to me. No, no.
Descend because of your own heart. Oh, we are permeated with our parents. Fall Adam blaming Eve. Eve blaming the serpent and God holding them both accountable for their own sin. No beloved God says when you're lost, lead you away. It is you that.
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Are responsible. You didn't need any help.
And no one, beloved, I love this. No one this, No one can make a believer sin.
We don't. We can't take up with the language. He made me do it again.
Again, I did it because I wasn't raised right. Oh no, beloved. Oh, we can't do it. Maybe my dad wasn't the best dad there was in the world. Maybe I could write a book of his failures. I may be able to do that below it, but that has nothing to do.
With the multitude of sins and failures in my life, I am the one responsible for them. And so the Spirit of God, through the apostle James, says that every man, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed when he hath of his own lust, and enticed with lust, hath conceived it, bringeth forth sin.
And sin, when it is finished, bring it forth death.
Brother Stan, Jacobson said. You can write over this verse.
LSD, You've heard that, haven't you? I don't know what it means, but I know it's some kind of drug that people illegal drug that people use.
Lost sin. Death.
Why, beloved? Why would we respond to the lust of our hearts? Why are we so sure?
That our hearts can suggest something.
Beneficial to us that God has strictly forbidness. It's because of lust. And we trust our heart more than we trust the heart of God. Our forefather and mother did it, Adam and Eve did it. They trusted their own heart, their own wisdom, their own confidence, and their own self that they could do what God told them not to do and end up in a better condition than they were before.
And they thus conceived, sin came out, and death entered the world. And you and I beloved our dying creatures because of LSD. Well, after he says that, he warns you and me in verse 16, Do not err, my beloved brethren, You know, dear ones, in our lives as we go through this world.
There are times when you know I walk with a brother who is a Lutheran.
He goes to the Lutheran Church and he's a babe in Christ. He doesn't know a fraction. He doesn't have a fraction of the knowledge of the word of God that I have. But I can't say he's He's not even happier than I. If you gather a little manna, it, it suffices you as much as if you were to gather a lot if you eat it. And if you don't eat it, it it breathes words and state worms and stinks. But anyway.
This brother that I walk with, he doesn't know how he condemns me when he says, Oh yes, a Christian sin, but we don't sin willfully. I haven't had the courage to tell him the way this man has sinned. Every time I've sinned, it's been willfully. That's what sin is, beloved. Sin is lawlessness itself will at work. And that's what causes us to sin. You are responsible for your own sin. It's a wonderful thing. It's a wonderful thing.
To be free from this concept that you can blame someone else for your misbehavior. Why I'm not telling you.
That I don't ever think I wouldn't have got angry if Oh but beloved, I know it won't stand in the presence of my God. So the apostle says or the spirit of God tells us.
Don't hurt my beloved brethren. Don't fall into this deception.
That your heart will deceive you with and then he says this.
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Every good and.
Gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the father of lights, with whom no variable Ness.
Neither shallow or turning of turning. Now he says. OK.
If your own heart isn't going to give you what will make you happy, that means you're going to spend the rest of your life in sorrow and depravity and betrayed of all good things. No, it means you've opened the door if you've judged your heart and won't allow sin to spoil the fruits of righteousness in your life. The Father of Lights have a such a big room full of good gifts.
You won't be able to contain them. You know, when I got saved, I thought, oh, I'm saved. That was wonderful. That was more than I could contain. But I've learned that that was just the beginning. And the more I go on with the Lord and the more I open the word of God sometimes.
Authority comes to me from the word of God and I I just close it and I say Lord Jesus, it's too much, I'm too little.
For the riches of this wonderful book to contain it. And I say I want it all, but I can't even contain the little bit that you've given me. Oh beloved, our God is a giving God of every good and every perfect gift. And you're denying his dispensing upon you and your life whenever you allow lust, sin, and death.
To be active in your life. Oh, let's turn away from our hearts and the trust in our hearts and turn to this father of light. What does that mean? Well, it means that last night, you know our little tamper. We don't have all of the.
Nice things in life and sometimes when you get a little older, you have to get out of bed and well in the dark and go to the restroom. That's a few miles it seems like.
In the cold wait, it's not that far. A little ways away. And your wife, she trusts you and she hangs on to your arm and you walk across the field and you step in a hole and stumble and.
Well, she trusts me and relies on me, but I'm not the father of light. What's it mean? It means he who sees everything in the dark as clear as if it's broad daylight. He who knows everything that's going to be in your life before it ever happens. He knows all of the dangers.
All of the dark. There's no shadows with God. He sees everything as is in the brightness of the noonday sun. He's saying I, who know and have all of this life, will give you every good and perfect gift if you'll just let me. You love it. Do you know the Father of Light is wonderful to know? God is your father. I don't know what your concept of Father is.
My concept of Father is that I don't know of a greater source of love and care than that of the Father, my Father and my God. Oh, can't we have confidence in his giving of good gifts? We can. Well, he says it all comes down and not only that, beloved in verse 18, he says of his own will begat? He asked.
With the word of truth, this is what I refer to. An opening in contrast to the flower man born as a flower and fame with. Listen, I ask you, you can't deny this. You go to a maternity ward at the hospital and watch. Just watch the people look at the babies. Oh, isn't he cute? Oh, isn't she cute?
I really I have to say.
Well, I did think my own kids were cute. Okay.
And that's all you hear. These people look at their children. How wonderful. Old, blind, deaf and heard people say, oh, aren't they cute? No.
The flower has ridden. We needed a new life, and God knew we needed a new life.
And he begod us that new life to the word of God, which is the eternal word of God. And beloved, I like to think you haven't seen anything yet. You know the Lord has changed me greatly morally, that dear Catholic sister, she said when I clean their furniture in this.
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I don't know. It's where the sisters, the Catholic sisters live, she said.
OK, there, yeah, she said. Mr. Short with been pleasant having you here. We have enjoyed your company and I said Sister McCoy, I said.
If the Lord Jesus hadn't saved my soul, you wouldn't have wanted me around, she said.
She looked like you too, Jackie, She said. Oh, God must really love you. I said. She does. She does. She does. Yes, beloved. He loves me. And he begot me with the word of his truth. And you haven't seen any. If you see a change, a little change in my life. You haven't seen anything yet. Wait till you see me. When I go into glory with my new body, I will be perfectly like Christ. And it's because God has begotten me.
With the word of his truth and incorruptible seed. I was born of corruptible seed. My dad died. My mother died. But I've been born of God, and I'm not going to die. It's going to get better and better and better the longer we're here. And so are you thankful, beloved, that God has begotten you. Then there was a reason for him doing it.
That we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures, the kind of first fruits of His creatures. What's that mean? If the firstfruits are the first grains, the first apples, the first Peaches of a harvest, And they give an indication, beloved, a good indication of what's to follow? Well, a brother told me, So, you know, people think that Christians are old fashioned.
In their thinking, he said, we're not as old fashioned. We're living ahead of the time. In the millennial reign of Christ, everybody's going to bear the moral features of Christ, and that's what James is saying here. He said God begat you by these eternal words that you could be for the time of the manifestations of the Son of God. You could display first fruits in your life. That's what God wants to see today as he looked down in your life.
He wasn't so interested in what you accomplished for your glory. He was interested in how you manifested fruits for God and for Christ, Lord. That's why He begat us. So we're ahead of the time, beloved. We're ahead of the time we're living. We're real modern people because we're living 1000 years ahead of time and we can display Christ now.
Before it will be manifested to all the world that we are indeed sons of God. That's what the Scripture says, the manifestation of the Son of God. Well.
It's a wonderful thing if somebody at least raises the if our lives at least raise the question in their mind. I wonder if that guy's a Christian.
We can thank the Lord for that, can't we? Well, here, that's the purpose of our being begotten. And therefore it says.
In verse 19. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to wrath. Now these are contrasted with the natural man you know, I remember as a as a boy, you know, before I saved I love to.
And it was profitable, you know, But we didn't have much. But after World War Two, we lived in a little 24 by 24 Shack and my brother told me that we finally got electricity and we got a radio. And I just used to listen to that radio. And I loved the Wednesday night and Friday night boxing matches.
And that stayed with me, beloved.
And my mother, my poor mother, she used to hear me mimicking.
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Johnny and all the rest of their ringside announces and everybody else and mimicking the fight.
Of minute. And she was a Hindu. Be quiet. Be quiet.
Oh, we like to talk. We like to tell and display what we know.
We don't know anything.
And so the Lord says to us, if you want to display the first fruits.
Be swift to hear.
If no mistake, as we've heard, that God gave us two ears and one tongue, and we don't keep them in that order, do we?
We don't keep them in that order.
You think we had, We wished we had two mouths so we could say more than we do say. And oftentimes it's like we don't have any ears because we don't listen to what God is saying.
Well, the first roots are manifested in our being swift to hear, slow to speed, and slow to laugh.
That's another thing that marked me. I can remember. You know, I never was much of A mechanic and if I couldn't get the hub tap off of my new, and it wasn't new, but it was a 37 Dodge coupe and it was a little hard getting the hubcap off.
Mostly because of my lack of mechanical skill. I might throw the wrench because it was the wrench's fault and the screwdriver or whatever I was using as if that dumb piece of steel.
Was exercising a will and I would get angry.
All beloved is anger in your life.
Do you allow yourself that unwarranted?
What privilege of being angry the sooner you judge it?
The sooner you'll be able to manifest the firstfruits of this new creation in your life, brother, you know? And there this wasn't before. I say it is a long time after I received one very long ago.
I told an older brother who was more or less a spiritual father in my life. Or it was a few years ago, but it could have been yesterday.
I said I got angry in the care meeting.
He didn't say anything. Just let me talk a little while and then later he said, you know.
When we get angry, it's a manifestation that we haven't judged ourselves, isn't that?
Well, I don't know if I answered him or not, but I know what the answer was. So you get angry. I suppose 99% of the time you allow yourself to get angry. It's because you have not judged yourself and you're not going to manifest the first fruits of Christ in a state of anger and soul. He says for the wrath of man in verse 20 worketh not the righteousness of God.
Do you want have you any interest in working the righteousness of God? You need to judge anger in your life. It won't do your family any good. It won't do you any good. It won't do your brethren any good. It won't do your work fellows any good. It won't do anyone any good, and it certainly will not work the righteousness of God well, he says.
Wherefore last part all feel.
Wherefore, layest part all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word which is able to save your soul, he said. Let the word of God work in your life, and you can have a saved soul. That's in contrast to the salvation that the 12 tribes waited for day and night. They wanted the salvation of circumstances and the restoration of their nation.
Even the 12 apostles and 11 apostles that were living.
At the time the Lord went back, that's what they were waiting for. We'll call at this time restore Israel. That's what a godly Jew today is waiting for. He is waiting for the salvation of the land of Canaan given back into their hands to whom it really belonged, given to them by God. But they're not going to have it now. And if they don't have the salvation of their souls, they're not going to have any salvation and beloved receive.
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Receive the engrafted word, the word of God. Let it have its recourse in our life. What a change.
It was made in each one of our lives if we turn the Word of God loose and allow it to have its recourse. But the doers of the Word and not hearers only deceiving your own selves.
Oh, you know, if serious, isn't it? I always think the other night I can't remember the figures. Now I was thinking of the number of hours this body of mine has sat in meetings where the word of God has been open, beloved. It's thousands upon thousands of hours. I've sat in countless numbers of hours of reading meetings, gospel meetings, Sunday school meetings.
Thousands upon thousands of hours. What you would think when you think someone had who had heard the word of God, that much he would surely be perfection and personification.
Why am I not that?
Be ye doers of the Word and not ears only, Oh beloved, because we're too slow to do what we hear in all of our exposure to the Holy Word of God. Well, it also goes on. The Spirit of God goes on and says if you don't, if you only hear.
And you don't let the Word of God have its practical effect in your life. You are deceiving yourself, and this is foundation truth. James has said you want to grow spiritually. The very first thing you need to know is that you have got to respond in your life to the engrafted word of God and become a doer of the woods.
Well then he goes and he says if they if in verse 23.
For if any man, if any, be a hearer of the word of not, adore is likened to a man beholding his natural face in the glass. That is, You looked in the mirror this morning and and as soon as you walked away from that mirror you can't remember what you saw.
There's no vivid, lasting impression as to what you saw.
You looked away from the glass, and what you saw is gone from your sight and from your mind.
And James says don't be like that, but here in verse.
25 That tells us what we should be like, but whoso looketh and that could be translated like this Stoops down to look.
They tell me it is the same expression used when Peter came to the sepulchre and he stooped down to look. We don't like to stoop down, do we?
We don't like to get down and take a low place. You know, it's better to humble myself than have somebody else humble me. But I don't want either one. But below, we've got to stoop down. We've got to get down. Mom used to tell me. Henry, you better get off your high horse. I don't know. I never thought I ever did have a very high horse. That's what we got to do.
We got to get down, stoop down and look. And what? Look into the perfect law of liberty and continue therein.
He, he bring us, he being naughty, forgetful here, but I do have the work. This man shall indeed be blessed indeed. And his deed. Oh beloved, we're going to talk and try to arrive at an understanding of what this expression Law of liberty.
Meaning and what it means is that one who has begun be has been begotten of the word of God, having nature the same as God.
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He has the life of Christ and that life.
Wants to be set free to express itself.
In First Fruits for Christ, it wants to do it now, as some of you have heard this illustration.
The fellow, the younger ones, probably won't remember it. I had a dog named Captain Jackie visited us once and she called him the Captain because she saw his authority over his postmaster. But my dog would get loose.
And I could say here, Cap.
And he didn't have any ears to hear.
If I went 10 yards, he went 11. If I ran 11 miles an hour, he ran 15 miles an hour. And I knew from the start he was not going to come to me.
But I had a secret.
Until all I had to do was to go over to my service vehicle or my car.
And open the passenger side of the door and Cap would come around and he would jump up in the passenger seat and sit down and patiently wait for his master to take him down to Casey's or the ice cream store and give him a candy bar or an ice cream car. He had been set free to do his own will and it was a great delight to him.
You say, Why didn't you spank him? Because then I would never get him back, that's why.
I wasn't exactly all dumb in that for us, OK, but that's the law of liberty. A Christian does what he wants to do, and what he wants to do is bring fruits for Christ. That's the law of liberty. It's what compels a believer in him. Because I have to come to meeting. It says it's meeting night and I get to come to meeting.
Come to be in the presence of the Lord Jesus is what we love to do.
Well, that's the law of liberty.
There says you'll be blessed if if you recall that and keep that if any man among you seem to be religious and bridleth not his tongue. I had a Christian friend and a diamond where I worked He is really on fire brother and he met a neighbor of mine and lived across street and neighbors said to him, yeah always say you know him. In short yeah, he said he's really religious.
And dear Philip said, no, he ain't religious. He said he knows the Lord as his savior. There he is such a thing as being religious in a right way. And here's what being really religious is. It is pure religion.
Bridler, if any man among you seem to be religious, and bridle, if not his tongue.
But deceiveth his own heart. This man's religion is faint. This little tongue, you know.
It reveals our hearts. It reveals what we really are pursuing in life. You stay around somebody long enough and listen to them long enough, you're going to find what their hearts interest for the end. It's a it's a betrayer of the heart, and I'm glad that it's so. What are you talking about today?
That the Lord formed.
A good part of our conversation today.
Well, he says, pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father.
Is this to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction? You know, this is especially significant in the book of James, because that people Israel, the 12 tribes to whom it was addressed.
Had they gone on with Jehovah their God, they wouldn't have known much about having fatherless children and widows in the midst.
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God would have blessed them with children. He would have blessed their storehouses, their barns, their fields, and many of the afflictions that afflicted the nations they would have known nothing about. But here is a people contrary wise had been.
A high percent.
Of their population would have been fatherless and widows because of the government of God upon them.
That's where we are today. In the Church of God, We're suffering. Under the government of God, we are more like fatherless children or widows.
Of having no husband. That is, we don't hold Christ as the one to whom we are espoused.
And God is our Father as the Father of Light, to give us all good, perfect things. And so we're floundering. But beloved, be have an exercise in your heart.
To visit the fatherless. To visit the widows. And I'm not talking only about literally.
But the spiritual application of it, Do you have a purpose in your life?
To take care of the Church of God, the people of God, so weakened and so faltering because they don't know their relationship with Christ, the head, the husband to whom we have been espoused, and they don't know.
The relationship with their God as Father, you know that relationship exists, but it is not a reality to those who walk mingled with the world. And so God has to say, God Almighty has to say, come out from among them and be separate. That I might be into you a God and Father saith to God, Lord, God Almighty. And so the believers today.
We've mingled ourselves so much with the world, gone on such worldly ways, we're not experiencing the joys of the preservation of our father. Well, you want to help the people of God visit such, try to encourage them in their affliction. Well, let's go to the last vet. And to keep himself unspotted from the world. You know, the closer you draw to Christ.
The bigger the world will be in your life that you will keep yourself from and the further you get from Christ.
You will allow a lot more of that world in your life, and the world will You will think of the world as a much smaller thing because you've imbibed most of it in your life. God tells us if you're going to prosper in your soul, you have to face this issue.
Of keeping yourself unspotted from the world. It is a daily thing. You know. Joshua the high priest had been given beautiful garments, but there was such a departure and failure amongst the people of God. There he stood and guilty. Guilty garment.
Well, we want to keep ourselves unspotted from the world. Now I might say, well, just go on. But in chapter one you remember in verse one it said James was a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. In chapter one we have mostly what a God is, but now in chapter 2 we're going to take up more what pertains to the Lord.
Jesus Christ. And so he begins this chapter by saying my brethren again. Remember, it's my brethren.
Oh, you know, I I just love that declaration of Ruth. I I I trust that it burn into my soul. Thy God shall be my God, and thy people shall be my people. I love it. Beloved. I love to meet a child of God because they are my brethren. They are my brethren, and I'm one of them.
00:55:01
That's what James said, my brethren, although here it's used in a different sense. But he is referring to those professing faith in the Lord Jesus. I'd rather have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory with respect of persons.
What he is saying is if you say you have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
You cannot have respect of persons. Those two things cannot be brought together. Our Lord Jesus Christ was no respecter of persons. And if you say you have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and you are a respecter of person, you are not.
Possessed with the right kind of faith. And so he said, don't do that, don't have respect of persons. And then he goes on and demonstrates 2 men.
One comes into the assembly or the synagogue it should read. He has a gold ring and goodly apparel and they came in also poor man and Viola. Here's a rich man and a poor man and he says, and you have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing. That word has a different meaning that has today has two meanings. 1 is how it's used today but how it's used in the scripture is is.
Luxurious clothing, fancy clothes, They say he's really a fancy Jess person. Well, if someone with wealth comes in and you were to say to him, sit in a good place and say to the poor, stand all there here under my footstool, Well, perhaps we haven't had that experience in our lives, particularly actually. But beloved, we have often had this experience in our lives.
Spiritually, if you're going to go on with the Lord, spiritually, you're going to have to content yourself. I don't want to put you on the spotlight, but you're going to have to contend yourself to go on with the likes of me. You're going to have to be content with the poorest, oh the Lord left in the land of Israel when he carried a fine man of Israel.
Never can ever carry the finest men of Israel off to Babylon. And to make eunuchs of them, he left those who are described, who were of the poorest sort. And if you're going to go on with the Lord Jesus Christ, you're going to have to be content with going on with men of low estate. With men of low estate, Well, we may come back and spend a little more time on this.
1St But I just want to encourage you, if you want to prosper in your soul spiritually, we got to get down off our high horses.
And and go on with one another as being what we are men and you might say vile, poor, raiment, and go on together for the glory of Christ and not beloved. Respect person. Let's pray Lord Jesus help us as we.
Have looked into the mirror today, and we realized the tendency of our hearts is to walk away and forget what has exposed our hearts Speaker and hearer alive tonight. And so we ask that we may stoop down and look and not cease looking into this wonderful law of liberty into which.
We have been brought. Lord, bless Thy precious words. I help us to make it living reality in our lives. We pray, Lord.
And thy worthy name and.