Introduction
Your religion, is it superficial or is it supernatural? You’re going to find two kinds listed here in James chapter 1 beginning in verse 26: “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. 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” (James 1:26–27). James chapter 1, verses 26 and 27.
These are serious times in which we’re living, and I am convinced that we are facing one of three things: either the blackout and the annihilation of civilization as we know it; or the second coming of Jesus Christ; or else a global revival. One of three things. And, I pray God that we can see a global revival. And, there’s nothing in the scripture that says we cannot have a great spiritual awakening of gigantic proportions before our Lord comes, and there seems to be some straws in the wind. There seems to be a going in the tops of the mulberry bushes that tells us that God is up to something.
But, I want to say ladies and gentlemen, that we who are saved—we who are born again—need to be living and keeping with the urgency, and the emergency, of these times. And, we need in our lives, and we need in our churches, and we need in our faith, a reality, real religion.
And, so we’re talking today about real religion—not religion that is superficial—but religion that is supernatural. And, so our text today breaks itself very logically, and very easily in two divisions. First of all, I want you to see the dangers of superficial religion, and then secondly I want you to see the delights of supernatural religion.
I. The Dangers of Superficial Religion
Now, look at the scripture here. James chapter 1 and verse 26, and you will see the dangers of superficial religion. Look at verse 26: “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” (James 1:26).
A. It Lacks Reality
Three dangers of superficial religion are mentioned here. The first danger is that it lacks reality. It lacks reality. Look at it: “If any man among you seem to be religious.”
Now, there are some many people who only have a form of godliness. They have a name that they live, but they are dead. And, their religion is only an illusion. It’s only something that seems to be, but there is no reality to it, and there’s nothing worse— mark it down—there’s nothing worse than religion without reality. Oh, it ought to be real to you. It ought to be vibrant to you. You ought to have a know-so, not a hope-so or a maybe-so salvation. You ought to have a know-so salvation.
Too many Christians are like question marks when they ought to be exclamation points. Too many Christians are doubting Christians when they ought to be shouting Christians. Too many Christians are only seeming Christians when they ought to be sincere Christians. Too many Christians cannot say, “…I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day” (2 Timothy 1:12). For faith is a faith of a calm assurance. Now, I have Ms. Geraldine Smith over here who’s amening me this morning. Where are you Geraldine? Right there, now. OK, we’ve heard from you. That’s enough, I need to cool you down and warm them up. So, we thank God for her, we think God for her. She gets excited about these things, and some of you need to get excited about a know-so salvation.
Now, listen friend, your salvation, your salvation ought to have reality to it. It ought to have reality to it. You ought to say, “I know that I am saved.” You see, James chapter 5, verse 13: “These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life…” (1 John 5:13).
If you want sometime, something that’s fun to do, get you a Bible that you don’t mind marking—and by the way you shouldn’t mind writing in any Bible. There’s nothing wrong with that. Some people think it’s sacrilegious to write in the Bible. It’s not. You take those Bibles and wear them out, and then get you another one and wear it out. And, brother, a Christian that has a Bible that’s falling apart generally has a life that’s not falling apart. And, you just take your Bible and every time you come to the word know— K-N-O-W—in 1 John, you just draw a circle around it. Take a red pen and draw T word—know, know, know, know, know—over, and over, and over again. Oh, there is to be the assurance of your salvation.
But, the problem with so many people is their salvation lacks reality. They don’t know that they have been born again. Have you been born again? If you have, you ought to know it. It ought to be just as real—it ought to be just as real as your first birth. Will Rogers, one time, went to apply for a passport ,and they asked him for his birth certificate. He said, “What do you want my birth certificate for?” They said, “For proof of your birth.” He said, “Well, I’m here, ain’t I?” That ought to be proof enough.
Oh, listen friend, it ought to be just as real to you as your first birth. Someone asked Dwight L. Moody, one of the greatest evangelists who’s ever lived, “Mr. Moody, what is the secret of your evangelistic success? Give me, if you would please, a resume of your career.” And, these are the words of Dwight L. Moody. Here’s how Moody answered that man. He said, “My name is Dwight L. Moody. I was born the first time in 1837. I was born the second time in 1856. My body is soon to die, but my spirit born two times is immortal.” That’s all he said. Oh, how real the second birth was to Dwight L. Moody. He knew that he’d been born again.
The problem with superficial religion is that it lacks reality. There was a man, a church member, whose name was Mr. H. L. Cox, and he’d been a member of the church for years. But, he did not have that calm assurance that the choir spoke about awhile back. One day he made up his mind, I can take it no longer. I’m tired of playing church. I am tired of an illusion. My soul demands reality, and he found it in the Lord Jesus Christ and then he wrote this song.
Oh, how well do I remember how I doubted day by day,
For I did not know for certain that my sins were washed away;
When the Spirit tried to tell me, I would not the truth receive;
I endeavored to be happy and to make myself believe.
But, then I prayed to God in earnest, and not caring what men said;
I was hungry for the blessing; my poor soul, it must be fed;
Then at last by faith I touched Him, and like sparks from smitten steel,
Just so quick salvation reached me Oh, bless God, I know it’s real!
But, it’s real; it’s real, I know it’s real, Praise God, the doubts are settled,
For I know, I know it’s real. (H. L. Cox)
Can you say that? I trust that you can. The problem with superficial Christianity— superficial religion—is that it lacks reality. It is but an illusion. Notice what James said, “If any man seem to be religious.” Do you just simply seem to be religious, or have you, my friend, been born again?
B. It Lacks Restraint
Now, let me say secondly, not only does superficial religion lack in reality. It also is lacking in restraint. Look again at verse 26: “If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue…”—who cannot restrain his own tongue—“then that man’s religion is vain” (James 1:26). What is James saying? James is so very practical. James says, “If you have been saved, if you have been born again, if your religion is real, it’s going to show in the way that you talk.”
James has so much to say about the tongue, and we preached last week about what James said about the tongue. And, now again James is speaking about the tongue, and you’re going to find out in the second chapter he’s going to have a whole heap to say about the tongue, so don’t relax yet.
I want to say, ladies and gentlemen, that one of the prime marks that a person has been born again is his speech pattern. You’re going to find an individual who’s been born again praising God, and witnessing. And, you’re going to find the person who’s not been born again, you’re going to find him criticizing, and carping, and you’re going to find him cursing, and you’re going to find him lying, and you’re going to find him exaggerating. And, James has so much to say about the tongue. And, little wonder that he has.
I’ve been a pastor now for twenty-six years, and I have known people whose two- inch tongues were doing more damage than a wrecking crew, and some of them members of the church. They have a tongue that’s loose on both ends and hinged in the middle. And, yet they claim to be born again. They claim to be saved. Nothing can do more damage to the cause of Christ, and the glory of our Lord, than people who seem to be religious and yet they don’t bridle their tongue. Many of us know people like that. Some of them claim to be big church workers. Some of them parading up and down the aisles of churches, but yet there is no restraint in their mouth. And, the reason that James warns against this is because it lacks in reality, “…for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh” (Matthew 12:34).
I heard of a woman who was a great church worker, at least she thought that she was, but she was one of these loose tongued women, and she wanted to impress her pastor. It’s one of these old-fashioned churches where they had a kneeling bench called an altar. And, she came forward, and she took the pastor by the hand and she said, “Pastor, I want to lay my tongue on the altar.” He said, “Well, sister, it’s only 24 feet long, but you can try it.”
James is very practical. James was sort of a hard-nosed pastor. And, James said, “If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue… this man's religion is vain” (James 1:26). And, I want to warn you—I don’t care whose church that you’re a member of, and I don’t care how many times you’ve been baptized—if you are a peddler of profanity, if you are a lover of lies, if you are a hurter of hurts, if you are a trader in trash, if you are a fondler of filth, then you need to be born again. Your religion is vain.
Now, this is not the only area where we need restraint, but James uses the tongue as an illustration of the fact that when a man is saved, it changes his life. We said last week, and I’ll say again, if your religion has not changed your life, you better change your religion. Because, you don’t have the kind that saves.
C. It Lacks in Results
Now, James is speaking about the dangers of superficial religion. And, he says number one: it lacks reality. Number two: it lacks restraint, it has no power to change a life. And, then thirdly, it lacks in results. Look at it again, verse 26: “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” (James 1:26). Look at that word vain. That word vain means fruitless, non-productive, and “exercise in futility.” You’re simply spinning your wheels. This religion can do you no good. It lacks in results. There is nothing to it. The sum total is nothing. It’s like a zero with the edges trimmed off. It is nothing, no good, and a waste of time.
So many people think there’s value in religion. Every now and then someone will stand up and say what we need is more religion in America. Not necessarily so. Most of the people in America are religious, but lost. They need to turn from religion to Jesus Christ. Religion can be vain, empty, vapid, of no good whatever, it lacks in results.
One minister was trying to win a young man to faith in Jesus Christ, to have this young man born again. And, this young man looked at that minister and said, “It won’t do you any good to talk to me.” He said, “I have tried religion for five years and it did me no good whatever.” And, the minister smiled and said, “I know what you mean, I tried religion for 15 years and it did me no good either, and I finally gave it up.” And, the man said, “You did, then why are you a minister?” He said, “Because I found Jesus Christ.”
I want to tell you that Christianity is not just one more religion. It is a vital relationship with a person. When you get saved, you receive Jesus Christ. He comes into you. His Spirit lives in you. He changes you from the inside. Religion is simply the outward expression of what’s on the inside. And, dear friend, if you don’t have Christ on the inside, then your religion is superficial. If you have Christ on the inside, then your religion is supernatural.
When you got married, you didn’t get the marriage religion. You got your wife or your husband. When you get saved you don’t merely get the Christian religion, you get Jesus Christ. Jesus comes into you. Oh, the dangers, the dangers of superficial religion. The worst thing about superficial religion is that people who have it don’t even know they have it. They deceive their own hearts. There are religious, but lost. They go to church on Sunday’s, they pay their tithe, they sing in the choir, they do all of this and when they die, there are going to Hell. The devil had just as soon send you to Hell from this pew as he had the gutter. It makes no difference to him. The devil doesn’t mind you being religious, so long as you don’t have Jesus Christ. And, I want to remind you that it was a religious crowd that nailed Jesus Christ to the cross. Religion does not save, Jesus saves. It is a vital relationship, a new birth.
Have you been born again? Does God’s Spirit bear witness with your spirit? Has your religion reality? Does it have restraint? Does it show results? Oh, the dangers of superficial religion. People who are members of the church. I want to tell you that people are going to Hell surrounded by receipts from church offerings, Sunday School attendance records, and baptismal certificates, because they have never, ever met Jesus Christ in reality. They’ve never been born again.
II. The Delights of Supernatural Religion
Now, James—very practical, and very plain, and very pungently, and powerfully— James speaks of the dangers of superficial religion. And, then James speaks of the delights of supernatural religion.
A. It Reaches Upward to God
Notice how James contrasts the two. Now, he speaks in verse 27, look at it, in verse
27: “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless”—that is orphans—“and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world” (James 1:27). Now, here’s James’ first description of supernatural religion, “pure religion and undefiled,” and it is in three dimensions. Look at it. First of all, it reaches upward: “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this…” It reaches upward to Heaven. It reaches upward to God. It recognizes God as Father.
Now, friend, there’s only one way to have God as your Father, and that is to have Christ as your Savior so that you’re born again. Contrary to popular opinion, God is not the Father of everyone. We hear people today talk in glowing terms about the universal Fatherhood of God, and the universal brotherhood of men. But, there is nothing in the Bible that teaches the universal Fatherhood of God, and the universal brotherhood of men. God is only the Father of those who have been born again. God is only the Father of those who have been saved, those who have received the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal Savior.
Jesus said to the unsaved Pharisees in John chapter 8, verse 44: “You are of your father the devil, and the lust of your father ye will do…” (John 8:44). The Bible says in John 1:12, concerning the Lord Jesus: “He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him”—as many as received Jesus—“to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name” (John 1:11–12). Look friend, in verse 18 of this chapter, in verse 18 of James 1. Here James speaks of the new birth: “Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth…”—of whose own will? Of God’s own will—“begat he us”—fathered He us—“with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures” (James 1:18).
Here James speaks of the new birth, begotten of God through The Word of God.
Through the preaching of The Word of God, when a man hears this Word, believes this Word, receives this Word, is transformed by this Word, he is born again, “not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever” (1 Peter 1:23). You see, real religion, real religion reaches upward. That’s the only way you can reach. You can’t put your hands under your feet and lift yourself off the ground. You can’t lift yourself by your own bootstraps.
Down in Florida, south of Lake Okeechobee, two college students were going along looking for parasitic plants. They were on some sort of a research expedition. They were walking there along the shores of a sandy stream, south of Lake Okeechobee in my home state. Now, there was a man named Mr. Jack Thicket—and a Fred Stall—were walking along. Thicket was in front, and Thicket said to Stall, who was behind him, “Stay back here, the ground is soft.” Thicket had been walking on the crusty sand, but his feet went through, and he was in sand down to his ankles. He said that, “You stay back,” and Thicket tried to take a couple of more steps to get on solid ground, but when he did, he sank even deeper, this time down to his knees. He said to Stall, “I believe this is quicksand.” He said, “I’ll stay here, you go get a branch or something to pull me out.” And, Stall went off to look for some sort of a branch, or some sort of a limb to help him out, but Thicket panicked and he began to struggle and try and get himself from that quicksand, and when he did he sank down up to his thighs. And, then he lost his balance and fell forward, and plunged his hands into that sand. He began to scream. Finally Stall came back with a branch and said, “Take hold of this and I’ll pull you out.” He said, “I can’t get my hands out of the sand.” Stall said, “You must try.” And, the more he tried, and the more he struggled, the deeper he sank. Stall didn’t know what to do.
He knew he couldn’t go near. And, finally, as Thicket whimpered and cried, Stall buried his face in his hands and prayed, and when he looked up where Thicket used to be was just the level sand. He was gone.
What he needed was someone above him, someone who was on solid footing that could reach down and lift him out. My friend, I want to tell you that this is the way every man in this world is. He is in a morass, a quicksand of sin, and there is no way that he can work himself out, and the harder you struggle the deeper you sink. And, that’s the reason we sing:
From sinking sand he lifted me,
with his own hand, he lifted me. (Charles H. Gabriel)
That’s the reason the psalmist said: “He brought me up out of a miry pit, he hath set my feet upon a rock, he’s put a song in my mouth” (Psalm 40:2–3).
There is, dear friend, the supernatural aspect of this religion that reaches upward. And, we’ve placed our hand in the hand of God. For the Bible says, “For by grace are ye
saved through faith” (Ephesians 2:8). Grace is God reaching down to you. Faith is your reaching up to God. And, when your hand of faith meets God’s hand of grace, that’s salvation.
I want to tell you something about real religion friend—supernatural religion—it reaches upward. It is before God and the Father. It begins recognizing God as Father, being born again of The Word of God. Have you been born again?
Jesus told Nicodemus—a better man than any man in this congregation, outwardly, morally—that he had to be born again. And, I don’t care how many degrees you have after your name. Nicodemus was a master of Israel. He had an M.I., but he didn’t have a B.A., he hadn’t been born again. Have you been born again? Have you? Wonderful, if you have. But, if you’ve not been born again, the day will come when you wished you had never been born at all.
B. It Reaches Outward
You see, if you’re born twice, you can die but once. But, if you’re born once, you must die twice. The first death, and then the second death, which is the lake of fire. What about the delights of supernatural religion? It reaches upward, but not only does it reach upward, it reaches outward. Look in verse 27 again: “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction…” (James 1:27). When a man has been transformed, when a man has been saved, when a man has been born again, it is going to give to that man a heart of compassion. He’s going to reach out to those in distress.
Now, James is not saying, by any stretch of the imagination, that the only people that we’re to visit, the only people that we’re to minister to, are widows and orphans. That’s not what James is saying. James is using this to be illustrative of the fact that when we’re saved, we are going to minister to those in need.
And, I tell you ladies and gentlemen, our city is hurting. And, all around us there are people who are in need. And, if you’ve been saved, if you’ve been born again, Jesus Christ wants to minister to those people through you. Not that you hire somebody to do if for you. This is not simply the work of the pastor, or the work of the educational director, the work of the quote, professional, end quote. This is the mark of anybody who’s been born again.
Somebody needs your love, and Jesus Christ has no hands but your hands. He has no feet but your feet, no tongue but yours, no eyes but yours, no ears but yours. And, He wants to work and minister through you. And, if you have been saved, and if your religion is real, it’s not merely going to show up on Sunday when you sit in a pew, but it’s going to show up on Monday when you do something in a very practical way, in a very practical way.
Again, translating your faith into daily living. Oh, how we need to help one another.
Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan. You can read it in Luke 10 when you get home. But, He said there was man going from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among thieves. They left him wounded and dead, stripped, bleeding, dying. And a Levite, who was a very religious man, passed by on the other side, and a priest passed by. But, then a Samaritan, a despised person, part of a Mongrel race came. But, the Samaritan didn’t pass him by. The Samaritan knelt down by him and gave him medication, and gave him encouragement, and finally the Samaritan put him on his beast, took him to an inn, took care of him. There Jesus tells three philosophies of life that are in the city of Memphis, and that are all over the world.
First of all there are the beater uppers. They’re recognized, they’re represented by these thieves. And, then there are the passer uppers, they’re represented by the priest and the Levites who went by on the other side. Now, I don’t know where they were going. Maybe they were going to church Sunday morning at Bellevue, or maybe they were going to the Southern Baptist Convention, or maybe they were going to a revival crusade, I don’t know, maybe they were going to a home Bible study. And, here was this poor man, down there in the ditch, and they were religious, but they passed him by. They left him there. There are the passer uppers and then there are the picker uppers. There’s this Samaritan who came by and picked him up and ministered to him.
Now, the Bible teaches that if you’re saved, you’re not going to be a beater upper or a passer upper, you’re going to be a picker upper. Real religion—“Pure religion…undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction” (James 1:27).
C. It Reaches Inward
Oh, dear friend, is it real to you? Has your religion transformed you in this area? And, then I want you to notice the third, the third mark of supernatural religion. Not only does it reach upward, and not only does it reach outward, but it reaches inward. Look again in James chapter 1 and verse 27: “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” (James 1:27). That is, it teaches inward. It’s going to give you a pure heart if you’ve really been saved, if you’ve really been born again, if there’s reality in your life.
Now, what does James mean when he says the world? He’s not talking here about the physical planet earth. He’s not talking about the world of nature. He’s not even talking about the world of men, for God loves the world of men. But, he’s talking about an ungodly value system that the Bible calls the world—“…all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world” (1 John 2:16), the Bible says. And, the Bible says, “…If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15). Again the Bible says that “…friendship with the world is warfare with God…” (James 4:4). Now, many people have joined a church, but they still love this world. Christianity is just something they have tacked on. They are baptized pagans, living double lives, coming to church on Sunday and going through a form, but going out there on Monday and being just as much a part of this ungodly system, with no transformation whatever in their lives.
Now, James says that if your religion is real, not only is it going to reach upward and not only is it going to reach outward, it’s going to reach inward. You’re going to keep yourself unspotted from this world, and the only way to do that is to be born again, and to rely on the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s not by struggling, it’s not by trying, it’s by trusting.
We live in a power-conscience age, but if you were to take all of the megatons of hydrogen bombs and all of the rest of the bombs that the world has ever created—or that people have ever created—take all of those bombs—ever exploded, ever will be exploded—and take them, somehow, into the lapels of your coat and detonate those explosions, they would vaporize your body, but you’d never be able to blast the sin out of your spirit. It would still be there. You see, that kind of power can’t do it, and willpower can’t do it.
But, I want to tell you friend, there is dynamite in this book called the gospel. The Greek word for gospel is dunamus. It’s the word we get “dynamite” from. Oh, “I’m not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the dynamite of God” (Romans 1:16). And, I want to tell you, I’ve seen that dynamite go off. It went off in my own heart, and it blasted sin and hatred out of my own heart, and where that was there’s now a river bubbling up, a spring bubbling up.
Conclusion
I remember, as I too did not have the reality in my life I wanted. I’d been a church member. I wasn’t certain I was saved. Because, when I came forward as a child they didn’t deal with me properly. And, I remember stopping one night as a struggling teenager trying to live a pure life—stopped one night on the corner of 39th Street and Calvin Avenue in West Palm Beach, and looked straight up into the starry heavens and said, “O, God, I don’t know whether I’m saved or lost, but I want to know, I need to know. And, Lord I have seen in Your Word where you’ve said, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.’ And, O God, with all of my heart, once and forever, every inch and every ounce as much as in me, O God, I trust You Jesus, and You alone to save me.” And, when I said that, a river of peace began to flow in my heart, and it’s still flowing to this very moment. When I trusted the Lord Jesus Christ and it became real to me, real to me. Is it real to you? Oh, my dear friend, it needs to be.
Quit living a superficial life. Start living a supernatural life. Stop enduring religion, start enjoying salvation. Let yourself come into the fullness of God’s blessings for you.
“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. 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” (James 1:26–27).
I want to tell you what real religion will do for you, friend. In the first place it will do in times of sorrow. “Well,” you say, “brother Rogers, I don’t have any sorrow.” Well, wait a while, then you will, you will. You mark it down, you’re destined for sorrow. You’ll not escape. The Spanish have a proverb: “There is no home without its hush.” And, I want to tell you, if you’ve got the real thing, it’ll do when you face sorrow.
I’ve been in the hospital this week visiting people who have terrible problems, horrible problems, but I’ve seen the light of the glory of Jesus Christ on their faces, because they have the real thing. Not only will it do in time of sorrow, it’ll do in time of death. Some of you have a religion that seems all right to live by, but mister, it’s no good to die by. And, the real test of your religion is when your feet touch those chilly waters of the river of death. Is Jesus Christ real? Can you feel in your hand the nail-scarred
hand? The one who said, “I’ll never leave you, nor forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5). Not only will it see you through sorrow, and see you through death, but it’ll see you through the judgment.
Oh, there is therefore now, no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. Now, I want you to check up. Is it superficial or is it supernatural? Have you been born again? Let’s pray.
