Pure Religion – Douglas Wilson | Collegiate Reformed Fellowship

so what i'd like to do this evening is work through uh james chapter 1 starting at verse 13 going through the end of the chapter and i'm simply going to uh i'm not going to read the whole thing all at once i'm going to read it and comment as as i go and and then hearken back to things that were uh stated earlier let no man say when he is tempted i'm tempted of god for god cannot be tempted with evil neither tempteth he any man but every man is tempted when he's drawn away of his own lust and enticed then when lost death conceived it bringeth forth sin and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death do not air my beloved brethren first thing is picture humanity as this giant mud flap and uh sin would be toxic weeds that grow up out of the out of the mud okay so uh where does sin come from well sin comes from our own desires our own lusts this is what this um dirt produces every man is tempted when he's drawn away by his own lust it's not coming from god um but no man say god this is coming down from above he is saying let no one say that god can't be tempted and he doesn't tempt anyone sin arises from below then he says do not hear my beloved brethren and then the question is well if if sin comes from below what is it that comes from above well the next verse says every good and perfect gift every good gift and every perfect gift is from above so we're talking about sin from below and every good and perfect gift is from above and cometh down from cometh down from the father of lights with whom is no variableness neither shadow of turning so the think picture the influence of godliness the influence of holiness the influence of uh this divine sunlight as coming down from the father of lights coming down upon us and there's no variation it's constant it's unchanging the the mud flats change all the time it smells different ways in different places produces different kinds of weeds so you've got sin from below and then sunlight or every good and perfect gift uh coming down from above then it says of his own will beget he us with the word of truth that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures so what god is wanting to to do i think in this image is he wants to grow a different kind of plant from this soil so you've got this awful place that's just a weed patch and then sunlight that's constant pure unchanging coming from above and then god wants to grow something different some a useful crop down below and so it says of his own will begat he us so think of this light that's coming down from above or think of this uh these good and perfect gifts coming down from above as the sort of gifts that engender uh fruitfulness the the gift the the good and perfect gift comes down and it creates something it makes something happen and the thing that makes it happen it says is the word of truth of his own will begat he us with the word of truth okay that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures so the the first fruits here has to do with the harvest that god intends god intends to grow a luxuriant uh fruitful crop in the middle of this weed patch he intends to turn this weed patch into a glorious cornfield or wheat field or something prop profitable something fruitful all right so sin from below sin from below holiness from above and then there's a word of efficacious power coming from above where of his own will he begets us to new life he does something new okay now if we've got sin from below holiness from above and then the word of power from above now what well we're now we're at verse 19 wherefore my beloved brethren let every man be swift to hear slow to speak slow to wrath well that's the first thing you want to do if you want to cooperate with what god's doing if you don't want to be growing weeds like you used to and you want to be part of this useful crop that god has now set himself on growing how do you cooperate with that what do you do with that what's the first thing you should do well my beloved brethren swift to hear listen quickly listen quickly be eager to listen don't be finishing other people's sentences for them and above all don't be finishing god's sentences for him so if god's speaking you want to be entirely completely receptive swift to hear slow to speak slow to wrath so quick listen quickly speak slowly and get angry slowly doesn't say never get angry in ephesians it says be angry and sin not and then it says if you're angry don't let the sun go down on your wrath so there is a there is a righteous anger that does exist in the world however comma the next verse verse 20 says for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of god so man's anger from below is a weed so we sometimes might think well now that i'm a christian i can get angry on god's behalf well certain holy people have done it but don't try this at home kids don't it's something that is that is part of a christian life it is um jesus got angry when the when the um people in the synagogue were looking to see if he was going to heal the man with the withered hand anger and jesus doesn't say this but he was probably angry when he cleansed the temple right one in infers but there's a there's a peculiar kind of anger that doesn't cooperate with what god's up to the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of god so you want to you want to do something about your anger be quick to listen be slow to speak slow to wrath why because man's wrath doesn't cooperate with what god's up to then so man's anger hasty answers quick temperedness all of that those are weeds from below then in verse 21 it says wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness this is the king james it's a good name for a band no it's not a good name stop it okay wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness and receive with meekness the engrafted word which is able to save your souls so remember up above of his own will he begat us with the word of truth and it says here receive with meekness the engrafted word so you've got this image still every good and perfect gift is coming down from above we grow a nasty crop don't don't do that stop doing that receive the word from above uh this engrafted word which is able to save your souls which is able to save your soul so when if the word of truth in verse 18 if if that word of truth is uh engenders life that means you're born again that's the new that's new life so the word of truth begets us into new life and then he says in verse 21 to receive this word which is able to save your souls then and this is the sort of the cash payout of this passage realize that this book james is written by the lord's half-brother okay this is written by a man who grew up with a perfect older brother [Laughter] he knows what he's talking about and there's no sign of crackle of envy or anything but so so verse 22 he says but be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving your own selves be doers of the word and not hearers now he says in the previous verse that you're to receive the word with meekness and receiving the word with meekness is able to save your souls and then he says be doers and not hearers only so if you're just a hearer if well let me put it another way in verse 21 receive with meekness we might tend we might think that this is entirely passive right you receive the word with meek this you just lied and take it okay but then he says but do all right don't just hear don't assume that receiving the word with meekness is entirely passive because he says be doers of the word you want a plant to grow up you want something to come up be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving your own selves now this is really this is one of the most interesting concepts ever and it's one of the most interesting things in the bible and that is this deceiving your own selves how is it possible i ask you how is it possible for you to lie to you and have you buy it you lie to you and you say yeah that sounds good that sounds good i find that i find that argument compelling and then you hasten to say tell me more tell me more how does that work how does self-deception work well if our brains were solitary single-celled organisms only capable of carrying one thought at a time then uh self-deception is an absurdity right but we're complicated we're complicated and that means and your your brain has billions of cells and all kinds of things going on and i was just sharing this with some people earlier this week i saw a film once back in the back in the day when uh science was king they used to treat epilepsy by snipping the the cord that connects the two halves of the brain so that's that was one of the treatments for epilepsy so the two halves of your brain couldn't talk to each other anymore that was the treatment but then they some psychologists got a hold of some people that had had this done to them and they did some very interesting experiments on them and they sat them down at the table and then you put a little screen in front of them and you could reach under the screen and you could pick up with your left hand i'm just being arbitrary with the hands because i don't know which size your left hand your left hand is wired to the right side of your brain and vice versa it goes the other way criss crosses well you pick up a very easily identifiable object like a toothbrush and you hold it with your left hand and you would know that it was a toothbrush and you could not say this is a toothbrush because the part of your brain that knew how to talk didn't know it was a toothbrush and the part of your brain that knew that it was a toothbrush didn't know how to talk but as soon as they switched hands they could say oh this is a toothbrush okay or they could hold it in the toothbrush they could write down this is a toothbrush but they couldn't say this is a toothbrush in other words you there's a lot of communication this way right there's a lot of lateral communication in the human brain in the human brain in the human mind and multiple opportunities are created for self-deception yeah that sounds right i didn't think that this morning but i think it now so uh here's another example the psychologists are devious one time one time they took a bunch of people who were overweight and they had them keep a journal of everything they ate all they didn't have to diet or anything like that all they had to do was keep a journal keep a record of what you ate so they all um wrote down the journal what they ate what they what they they had an apple they wrote down had an apple at two in the afternoon and then after a week or two or three of this they scooped them all up and took them off to a secure location and then fed them for the next three weeks on what they said they had been eating for the previous three weeks okay so if you said that i had a snickers bar at four in the afternoon someone would come into your room and give you a snickers bar you know here's your snickers bar and in the first three weeks nobody was losing any kind of weight and in the second three weeks everybody started losing weight like crazy why because everybody was lying to themselves and buying it right oh we have all this now how is it that this works how does how does self-deception work well it works this way but when it comes to spiritual things be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving your own selves a lot of people think that they are bible that a lot of christians think that they're obedient because they put up with sermons that say you ought to be obedient right well i go to a bible teaching church i go to a church that stands for the bible and i hear orthodox sermons and i i hear hear messages against this sin and this in this sense and i put up with all that i must be doing it well that's what james says if you're here of the word and not a doer you deceive yourself you're lying to yourself for if any be a hearer of the word and not a doer he is like unto man and then we shift from the image of um things growing from below and influence from above and we come to another image if any be a hearer of the word and not a doer he's like unto a man be holding his natural face in the mirror in a glass for he beholdeth himself and go with his way and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was so he looks in the mirror he sees that his hair needs to be combed and then he walks away and forgets that his hair needs to be combed he doesn't do he looks and he sees and identifies and walks away not taking any kind of action and then once you're away from the mirror you can tell yourself any story you want all right so he forgets what manner of man he was but who so looketh into the perfect law of liberty which tells you this is the mirror this is the this is the glass that we are to look into but who shall look at into the perfect law of liberty and continue with therein he being not a forget excuse me he being not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the word this man shall be blessed in his deed and the blessing is not deceiving yourself the blessing is having the word germinate the blessing is the salvation of your soul the blessing is you become a kind of the first fruits of his creature he starts to grow in you the things that he wants to he wants to see flourish in your life he shall be blessed in his deed then verses 26 and 27 if any man among you seem to be religious and bridleth not his tongue but deceiveth his own heart this man's religion is vain now here's this is interesting because here it is again deceiveth his own heart this man is lying to himself and he is the liar and he is the lied to he is and what's he doing this time before he's hearing and not doing now he is letting his tongue just run loose he's not bridling his tongue that causes this now that one of the principal ways in which you can deceive yourself is by listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself if you are listening to yourself basically you've got this you've got this automatic conversation going on all the time and if you're just chattering just verbal scribbling and you're going going and going going you're you're just talking and aimlessly and most of what's going on is this constant talking is what you're listening to you're just you're just taking it in whatever comes up remember jump back to the previous image whatever weeds grow that's that's what you think is well that's compelling right but if you make a conscious choice to talk to yourself and to conform what you say to what god has said how many times has the word been mentioned here right it says in verse 18 of his own will be gaddy s with the word of truth it says in verse 22 be doers of the word 23 if any be a hearer of the word so if you speak to yourself with uh with an intention with the intention of repeating or echoing what god has said if you're talking to yourself like that then what's going to happen you're not going to be deceiving your own heart if any man among you seems to be religious and bridleth not his tongue so if i'm listening to god's word and doing it well what does it say in verse 19. if the the word of god comes to me and says therefore my beloved brother and let every man be swifty here slow to speak well there's rattling my tongue right slow to speak bridling my tongue biting my tongue not saying everything that comes into my uh in into my mind honesty is a greatly overrated virtue okay not because honesty is wrong but because our version of it is wrong we think that honesty requires us to say every thought that comes into our heads but it's a great preacher i think it was mcshane or i forget which some great preacher some some lady came up to him and said what a marvelous sermon what a god what a man of god and he said if you could he said to the woman if you could see into my heart you would spit in my face i'm god i'm a piece of work so you don't share everything that comes you don't share everything you don't why would you do that well i just wanted to be transparent with my friends well stop it who told you to be transparent with your friends not me because oftentimes that kind of transparency is simply rattling on godliness bridles your tongue watch what you say i want you to be swift to hear slow to speak brighter your tongue and if you bridle your tongue you're that you've taken a major step toward getting out of self-deception which means that you've left space for yourself to do what you're hearing okay so if any man among you seems to be religious and bridleth not his tongue but deceiveth his own heart this man's religion is vain and then he says pure religion and undefiled before god and the father is this to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the world now this is a verse that many people who are advocates of what's called social justice point to well we need to fight for widows and orphans and we need to fight for the oppressed and that is very true we do all right but we can't rush to verse 27 without working our way through to verse 27 because the first order the first order of business is stop lying to yourself stop telling yourself stories what does paul say in first corinthians 13 if you give give your body to be burned if you're a martyr but you have not love what are you nothing he says if you give away all your goods to the poor but have not love what are you nothing if you visit every widow in the in town visit all the orphans and you start orphanages but have not love what are you nothing so it starts with keeping yourself unspotted from the world it starts with receiving the unchanging word of god which teaches you to bridle your tongue stop lying to yourself stop telling yourself you're doing things from from the bible when you're doing no such thing so you you basically clean up your own act if you don't clean up your own act all you're going to do when you go visit the widows and orphans in their affliction is contaminate them you're just going to bring a mess jesus says the of the pharisees that they cross uh earth and sea to make a proselyte make a a disciple and when they do they make them twice as much a son of hell as themselves so that's the that's the flow of this argument we produce by ourselves a bunch of nasty stuff god's gifts are unchanging inexorable and he gives a particular gift of new life the word that's implanted in your soul that can can spring up to new life you're to receive that with meekness how do you do that quick to listen slow to speak slow to become angry resist these sorts of natural things these weeds that seem to come so naturally and above all once you've made a profession of faith in christ above all take care not to tell yourself lies you

Channel: Christ Church

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Length: 23min 39sec (1419 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 07 2021