Post by Char on Oct 26, 2008 13:22:47 GMT -6
THE PURE AND UNDEFILED GOD
JAMES 1:27
I. THE EVIDENCE OF TRUE RELIGION.
PURE RELIGION AND UNDEFILED BEFORE GOD.
The religion described in the text is, as it were, a continuous spiritual worship, presented, in the harmonious working of renewed emotions and their consequent actions, to our God and Father in Christ............The first outward mark of religion mentioned by the apostle is sincere. Religious sincere address itself to the most necessitous object. Religious sincere especially singles out those objects which the worldly mind is disposed to despise. Religious sincere expresses it self in personal efforts and sacrifice.
. The second great sign of true religion mentioned by the apostle is personal purity or holiness, expressed in the words "TO KEEP HIM SELF UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD". This may be regarded as the natural outworking of love to God, just as sincere is more directly that of love to mankind, "IF YOU LOVE ME, KEEP MY COMMANDMENTS."
II. VISITING THE FATHERLESS AND WIDOWS........
What is meant by visiting the fatherless and widows in their affliction. The objects of our charity; the fatherless and widows in their affliction; in any want or distress wherein they need and are capable of our assistance. The charitable act we are to exercise towards them who are in want or distress.
This is a necessary and principal part, and a signal testimony of true religion. Mercy and charity are those duties which the gospel, the rule of our religion, doth a most earnest and special manner require and press the performance..(I Tim. 1:5, I Cor. 13:13. I Peter 4:8. Heb. 13:16, Luke 3:8, Matt. 5:7). Other exercises of religion can be of no value in the sight of God, where this duty of charity is neglected. What an affront must it be to God to pretend to join in prayers to Him for those who are in trouble, need, sickness, or any other adversity, if He hath put it in our own power to relieve them, and we will not.
It is a singular testimony of true religion, and what it oblige all sorts of men to; to take particular care of the fatherless children and widows of God’s ministers in their affliction, and to have a more special regard to them in the exercise of their charity.
III. UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD,
Men and women grow older in this world of ours, and as the years advance they change..
We have not merely been spotted, but spotted by the world..
We practically believe that no man can keep himself unspotted. He must accumulate his stains–it is not true.
The spot fall so thick that it is easy for men to say, "No one can go there and escape them"
When a man comes not merely to tolerate, but to boast of the stains that the world has flung upon him; when he wears his spots as if they were jewels; disbelief and his hard-heartedness in your face as the signs and badges of superiority.
When the world has lift upon our reputation, our conduct, and our heart, then we understand how flagrant is the danger; then we see how hard it must be to keep ourselves unspotted from the world.
We go for our assurance to the first assertion of the real character of Christianity in the life of Jesus.
The spotlessness of the Savior’s life is the pattern of the spotless life to which we must aspire—if we begin to study it, I think the first thing that strike us about it is its positiveness..
Jesus was never guarding Himself, but always invading the lives of others with His holiness.
He labored so to make the world pure that He never even had to try to be pure Himself.
A man knows that drink is ruining him, soul and body, and he makes up his mind that he will not drink again.
I am sure that there are some of us who have come here, conscious of stains and wounds from the hard conflicts of the week, who do indeed desire to know how they can be stronger and purer.
In the first place, Christianity is a religion of the supernatural, and, to any one who is thoroughly in its power, it must being the presence of a live super-naturalism, and make that the atmosphere of his life. But this is not enough, no mere sense of the super-natural ever saved a soul. Christ must come nearer to the soul than this before it can really by him, "escape the corruption that is in the world." Then there comes in all the personal relation between the soul and its Savior. We must get sight of that Divine pity which saw us in our sins and came to rescue us. We must see the Jesus of the cross, on the cross. When I ask somewhat more minutely into the method which Christ uses to keep His servants free from the world’s corruption, I seem to come to something like this, which seems, like so much besides in the gospel, at first surprising, and then sublimely natural and reasonable, that it is by a Christ-like dedication to the world that Christ really saves us from the world. You go to your Lord, and say, "O Lord, this world is tempting me, and I bear its stains." If you have a friend who is dishonest or impure, the surest way to save yourself from him is to try to save him.
JAMES 1:27
I. THE EVIDENCE OF TRUE RELIGION.
PURE RELIGION AND UNDEFILED BEFORE GOD.
The religion described in the text is, as it were, a continuous spiritual worship, presented, in the harmonious working of renewed emotions and their consequent actions, to our God and Father in Christ............The first outward mark of religion mentioned by the apostle is sincere. Religious sincere address itself to the most necessitous object. Religious sincere especially singles out those objects which the worldly mind is disposed to despise. Religious sincere expresses it self in personal efforts and sacrifice.
. The second great sign of true religion mentioned by the apostle is personal purity or holiness, expressed in the words "TO KEEP HIM SELF UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD". This may be regarded as the natural outworking of love to God, just as sincere is more directly that of love to mankind, "IF YOU LOVE ME, KEEP MY COMMANDMENTS."
II. VISITING THE FATHERLESS AND WIDOWS........
What is meant by visiting the fatherless and widows in their affliction. The objects of our charity; the fatherless and widows in their affliction; in any want or distress wherein they need and are capable of our assistance. The charitable act we are to exercise towards them who are in want or distress.
This is a necessary and principal part, and a signal testimony of true religion. Mercy and charity are those duties which the gospel, the rule of our religion, doth a most earnest and special manner require and press the performance..(I Tim. 1:5, I Cor. 13:13. I Peter 4:8. Heb. 13:16, Luke 3:8, Matt. 5:7). Other exercises of religion can be of no value in the sight of God, where this duty of charity is neglected. What an affront must it be to God to pretend to join in prayers to Him for those who are in trouble, need, sickness, or any other adversity, if He hath put it in our own power to relieve them, and we will not.
It is a singular testimony of true religion, and what it oblige all sorts of men to; to take particular care of the fatherless children and widows of God’s ministers in their affliction, and to have a more special regard to them in the exercise of their charity.
III. UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD,
Men and women grow older in this world of ours, and as the years advance they change..
We have not merely been spotted, but spotted by the world..
We practically believe that no man can keep himself unspotted. He must accumulate his stains–it is not true.
The spot fall so thick that it is easy for men to say, "No one can go there and escape them"
When a man comes not merely to tolerate, but to boast of the stains that the world has flung upon him; when he wears his spots as if they were jewels; disbelief and his hard-heartedness in your face as the signs and badges of superiority.
When the world has lift upon our reputation, our conduct, and our heart, then we understand how flagrant is the danger; then we see how hard it must be to keep ourselves unspotted from the world.
We go for our assurance to the first assertion of the real character of Christianity in the life of Jesus.
The spotlessness of the Savior’s life is the pattern of the spotless life to which we must aspire—if we begin to study it, I think the first thing that strike us about it is its positiveness..
Jesus was never guarding Himself, but always invading the lives of others with His holiness.
He labored so to make the world pure that He never even had to try to be pure Himself.
A man knows that drink is ruining him, soul and body, and he makes up his mind that he will not drink again.
I am sure that there are some of us who have come here, conscious of stains and wounds from the hard conflicts of the week, who do indeed desire to know how they can be stronger and purer.
In the first place, Christianity is a religion of the supernatural, and, to any one who is thoroughly in its power, it must being the presence of a live super-naturalism, and make that the atmosphere of his life. But this is not enough, no mere sense of the super-natural ever saved a soul. Christ must come nearer to the soul than this before it can really by him, "escape the corruption that is in the world." Then there comes in all the personal relation between the soul and its Savior. We must get sight of that Divine pity which saw us in our sins and came to rescue us. We must see the Jesus of the cross, on the cross. When I ask somewhat more minutely into the method which Christ uses to keep His servants free from the world’s corruption, I seem to come to something like this, which seems, like so much besides in the gospel, at first surprising, and then sublimely natural and reasonable, that it is by a Christ-like dedication to the world that Christ really saves us from the world. You go to your Lord, and say, "O Lord, this world is tempting me, and I bear its stains." If you have a friend who is dishonest or impure, the surest way to save yourself from him is to try to save him.
