Pure and Undefiled

I always enjoy so much doing the blessing of little children. I think that's the funnest thing in the ministry to do. Children captivate us, don't they? It was amazing. My wife and I went over to the DMV over in Tracy. We had to renew our licenses. Anyway, we got over there and there was a lady that had, I think, was three children. I'll tell you what, the lobby became a jungle gym for those children. I mean, they were running every different direction. I was hoping that by the time everything was done, that they would be tired and fall asleep. But usually that's what you hope for, isn't it? It's amazing how it's like they're energizer buddies. I mean, they just keep going, going, going, going until the late hours sometimes. Well, there's a purpose behind why God has this for us today. Because we are to learn something from infants and babies and little children. God wants us to learn something from them. There's an example that we see in them that really is so vital to us. Because if we are not, as if even Jesus Christ has said, become as little children, we're not going to be in the kingdom. We just won't be there. One of the things, there's a few observations you make about children, particularly babies, I think this is so. You notice about when God gives us children that they're small. They're like little small packages, a bundle of appetites. All of our boys were fairly small, probably bigger, baby-wise. But you're amazed by how small they are when they're born. It's like you can hold them in one hand. So that is an observation we see. And small children say, and they do, the funniest things, don't they? It's amazing some of the things that they say. In fact, Art Linkletter became famous with a TV program about children. And Bill Cosby, I think, sort of followed up with that as well. But I remember the old Art Linkletter show, and I think that was on prime time, as a matter of fact. When I was a kid growing up, now, brother, we have three boys, and I'll tell you, there are many stories that I could tell you about our three boys. I won't embarrass Jonathan here. Probably embarrasses him just to bring up his name, but maybe I'll embarrass his brothers since they're not here. But my wife was really, you know, when I got home one time from out visiting up in Idaho, one of the boys, I won't say which one, so I'll keep that nebulous, but one of the boys came up with an idea. He saw this hairspray. And what do you do with a hairspray? You know, well, you take the lid off. Most little boys either are screwing lids off, pushing buttons or something like that. Well, anyway, you know, my wife was telling me that, you know, she happened to, she was getting ready to go somewhere. She was spraying her hair with a spray, and it had this sort of pithy smell to it. And anyway, she found out that one of the little boys had actually tingled in it and put it back up. You know, so here she's spraying it on her head.

You know, our kids did some of the craziest things, I'll tell you. I remember one time that that Dave and Denise Dobson and I, and Joan and I got together, we were very good friends, and we had children about the same age. And we started, I know, I remember Dave and I started talking about whose children cost the most. Now, I'm not talking about birth cost, I'm talking about damage cost. One time I came home and my, you know, the boys had destroyed the garage door opener. I'm thinking, how in the world did you do that? Well, how they did it is there was a button, you know, that you push and it brings the garage door opener up. And then there's the automated, you know, the one that the remote. Well, apparently one of them wanted to open the garage, the other one it closed, and they started dueling with each other. One would push the button, the other would push the other button, it would go up and down, it was going up and down, up and down, up and down. And it got to the point where the garage door opener just simply exploded. That was pretty expensive, you know, back, that was up in Idaho when that happened. Also up in Idaho, we lived in a, you know, a home where the door, you know, had stained glass. And it was just beautiful, really a beautiful door. But I remember one of our boys, he enjoyed skating on the tile. And, you know, it was slick. And so he'd get in his socks, and he'd take a run at that door. And, you know, one time he took a run at the door and his head went right in, you know, to the stained glass. $200 damage, I think is what it was. We had to replace the glass in it. But so anyway, I'm not sure whether Dave won that argument or not. He would tell about his kids, what his kids did, and I would tell, I'd say, that's nothing, you know. But it is amazing what little kids do. You know, it really begins, this destructiveness begins very early. It's like if you ever have a little baby, you're holding in your arms, you know, have you ever done this before, where you're holding a baby in your arms? What do they go for? They go for your nose, don't they? And what do they try to do with your nose?

They try to tear it off! I remember our boys used to actually try to bite my nose off. You know, they'd gum your nose. But anyway, I won't say which ones did that. But, well, they all did that, actually. But, you know, so children are funny, aren't they? The things that they do. And I get, I get, I can watch them all day, the things that they, the antics that they do.

You think about a child, though, like you say, they're small. When a child is born, they're small, they're compact. But a child has all the parts of a person. It's like, it's like if you had, had a, you know, a car that was shrunk down, you know, to, to like two or three feet. It's the same principle, isn't it? In other words, you've got a car that has all the working parts, but it's, it's miniature. And so, you know, here, you know, children have all the parts of a person, but they're undeveloped and then mature. Physically, they're not fully, physically mature, nor are they mentally mature. You notice about also that small children, that their skin is smooth. I mean, everybody, the goal of women is to have the skin of a baby, right?

And you might as well forget it. In fact, Bobby, is it gonna happen for you? No, the skin is smooth, and, but of course, with all of us, you know, no matter what, how much lotion you put on your face, no matter, you know, what you try to do in order to combat it, you're going to get rough looking and wrinkled. And the face is not the half of it, by the way.

You know, when I was in, over in Hawaii, I noticed the cart, the guy was talking about this. He said, he said the woman, you know, looked at herself in a mirror, and she saw herself in the bikini she had on. And she said, you know, the mirror in the bikini told me I need to go work out at the gym.

But she said, my sweatpants said, you're looking good, girl. But, you know, we begin to, again, change, don't we? But in the same way, you think about it, when you're first converted, you're a complete Christian. You've got the mind, you've got the the body, you know, you've got the maturity, physically speaking, but you have the Spirit, you're a complete Christian when you have God's Holy Spirit, but you're like, we're like little children still. And I think when we first baptized, we're like infants, babes. That's what the Bible, in fact, calls us. So you see, it's the same principle. We have the Holy Spirit, but we're not fully matured, spiritually speaking. And we are children. The Bible calls us children in the eyes of God. And I don't care how old you may be, how many years you may have been in the church, how many times you've read the Bible and studied the Bible, you may be able to quote from Scripture to Scripture, from cover to cover.

You and I, brethren, are children in the eyes of God. One of the things that God really was very disgusted with Saul, king of Tarsus, or I mean, Saul, the king of Israel, is he did not remain small in his own eyes. When God chose him out of Israel to make him king, you know, over Israel, he apparently got pretty exalted in his own eyes, and he did not remain small before God. Well, God wants us to learn that lesson ourselves, brethren, that we remain small no matter how long we've been around, no matter how much we think we may know. Frankly, you think you know more than you probably do. Most of us are in that boat, you know, like Mr. Armstrong used to say, you don't know what you don't know.

You know, babies also are helpless. These little ones that were up here particularly, think about how helpless they are. They can't walk. You know, Mom and Dad could say, well, he's doing the blessing of the children. Go in and go up there. No, you have to carry them out, don't you? They can't talk. They can't communicate. Now, the only way they let their needs known and they communicate is by wailing, by crying or being discomforted in some way. You think about us, brethren, as Christians. A Christian really, truly is helpless, and particularly a babe in Christ. You know, frankly, we don't know how to communicate with God. We don't know how to communicate. I think that that's probably the greatest problem of human life, isn't it? Communication. To think about the fact that you and I don't know how to even communicate with our Father in heaven. Now, we think we do, but God knows our frame. He knows about us. We don't even communicate very well with one another.

So, communication is a major, major problem. But again, it's the same with a child, with a babe, as it is with a Christian. We don't know how to communicate. Let's notice over here in Romans 8. I'll show you what I'm talking about over here. Romans 8. In verse 26 down here, it says, Likewise, the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses, for we do not know what we should pray for as we ought. You see, we don't even know what to pray for. Oftentimes, we're praying for the wrong thing.

And yet, God, brethren, through the Holy Spirit, can know what really is within our hearts, what we really desire. Frankly, you know, God knows what is best for us better than we know what is best for us. And I think we all understand that and take that for granted. But the Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. So, you see, we don't know how to communicate with God, but through the Holy Spirit, the Spirit, through the Holy Spirit, God receives the message of what is really going on in our own minds. You know, how many times in your life you thought you wanted one thing, and then when you got there, it wasn't what you wanted at all. Well, God will see to it, brethren, that when you get there, wherever it is that you and I are getting to end up, it's where you want to be. It's where you desire to be. What is in your heart? What you really desire in your heart? And God's not going to force you to be somewhere where you don't want to be. We've always said that God looks on the heart, and this is the way He does it, through the power of the Holy Spirit. He looks upon your heart. What is really in your heart? For instance, you really want to obey God. You really want to be in His kingdom. Do you really want to be in His family?

And it says, "...now He which searches the heart knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God." You see, that's how He intercedes for us. According to God's will, according to God's purpose, God's design, and will, He does this. Now, you go down through here, brethren, it's so, so important for us to know, again, how loving God is. It says, then it says, "...and we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose, for whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren." You know, God knew that He was going to call people in this age, in this time, and brethren, He decided He was going to call you.

He could have called others, but brethren decided to call you, and you're here for that reason. There's no accident whatsoever. And it says, "...moreover whom He predestined, these He also called, whom He called, these He also justified, and whom He justified, these He also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?" You see how special, brethren, we as the children of God are to God? It's like these little babies brought up here today for the blessing. How much do their parents love them and cherish them? What would your fathers do for your children? What would your mothers do?

You would stand in the front of a bullet, wouldn't you, to protect them? You would do all you could do to see that they're safe, that they arrive to adulthood. And I think that's a major accomplishment, by the way, of a parent to be able to have their children survive until adulthood, to keep alive, and not only that, but to have meaningful lives. But go on here in verse 32, "...he who did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he..." It says, "...not with him also freely give us all things, who shall bring a charge against God's elect." It is God who justifies.

"...Who is he who condemns?" It is Christ who died, and furthermore, is also risen, "...who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes an earth session for us." So Christ is there again, saying, Father, I understand what they're going through. Christ, of course, went through this physical life that we go through. And it says, "...who can separate us from the love of Christ?" And he goes on and talks about all of the ways that people might think of that we could be separated from Christ.

And he says, no, these can't. These will not do it. But as long as we have our eyes on God, as long as we put our trust in Him, as long as we remember, brethren, that we are small, that we are His children, we've got the greatest offender anybody could ever have.

To me, these words that Paul writes here are some of the greatest piece of literature probably ever written. It's amazing what is it within the pages of our Bible.

You can read all the rest of it. But it goes on in verse 38, "...for I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is Christ Jesus our Lord." The Father in heaven, brethren, holds us as firmly as these parents did when they came up and they were holding their children. There was no danger of them dropping their children, you know, because they, of course, are going to see that that does not happen, that that does not occur.

So, brethren, here's an observation. I'm not going to give you very many observations of little kids today. There are tons of them we could draw upon. But also, did you notice that these little bundles of appetites here, it's like their raw potential.

Their raw potential. When you're first born, like you say, like I mentioned, you're not very much, really. You can't talk, you can't walk, you can't even feed yourself. And we all certainly know you can't take care of your bodily functions. You don't have control of your bodily functions.

Sometimes we will hear a baby that will, in a public sense, lose control of their bodily functions. If I could put that gently. It's almost cute, you know, when they turn red and they start, you know, their business, doing their business, I'll put it that way. You notice this, that brethren, when a baby does something like that, it's cute. Now, if you get old and you do that, that's not cute. You know, so you've got to be careful. You know, I always talk about that sometimes, that, you know, drooling in a baby is cute. Not so much when you get old. Not so cute. But a child has raw potential. They don't, we don't even know what they're going to look like when they're grown, you know. A lot of times people will say, well, he looks just like your grandpa. Or she looks just like her mother, you know. Look at that nose, look at that nose. She looks, she's a spit in the image, you know, of her mother. But in reality, you don't know what they're going to look like when they grow up. You really don't. You don't know what traits they're going to have, which parents, you know, they're going to take after. And I think a lot of men are hoping that they'll, they won't take after them. But within each of us, brethren, is raw potential as well when we're converted, when God calls us into the church. We're raw potential. We're probably not going to contribute very much as soon as we're baptized, are we? Why? Because we don't know enough, really. And we can do some things, but we are limited by our knowledge when we first come into the church. You know, I was really like a vacuum cleaner when I came into the church. I was in the vacuuming business. You know, I wasn't in the blower business, if I can put it that way. You know, you're either vacuuming in or you're blowing out, you know. Maybe that's not a very good analogy. But what I'm saying is, with a voracious effect, you're just absorbing all you can. And frankly, you're not giving a lot. You're getting when you first come into the church. But as you learn more, as you grow more, then you're giving more.

Because we don't want to become blow-hards, do we, as God's people? Of course, we also learn how to give, don't we? We learn about humility. We learn about, you know, bonding ourselves. We learn about remaining small as a little child. But again, within each of us, like within a child, there's raw potential. And the Apostle Paul, brethren, says that God, when He calls us, He knows what He's looking for. You know, you talk about designer babies. When God calls us, He's looking for a certain quality. And it says He puts us in the body as it pleases Him. You know, and we're compared to a building, aren't we? As God's people. We're compared to a building. You think about it, if you need a two-by-six in a particular place, you can't put a two-by-four in there. You know, you can't put a one-by-two. I mean, I guess they sometimes people try to do that. They'll use material that is not up to standards for building. But when God puts us in the body, we're perfect for the position He puts us in. If He needs a two-by-six, He puts a two-by-six there. If He needs something else, He puts that in there. But whatever's going to hold that building together. And the building, of course, is the church of God. And God puts us in the church, in the body. We all have different roles. And believe me, you're not here unless you have a role in the church. And He uses our talents and abilities as it pleases Him to profit everyone. It's not for our own profit, but to profit everyone in the church. It's for the building at large, in other words. You know, it's God and 10th, brethren, that we serve in the church with also our limitations. Now, I want you to think about that. I was talking again to this lady in a Y-in. She said, you know, looking for a perfect church, but there are no perfect people. Not going to happen, is it? When God calls you and me, we are imperfect. Now, we're working toward perfection, but God calls us with those imperfections, working toward perfection. And why does He do that? You know, why is it that when the hands are laid on at baptism, you receive the Holy Spirit, all of a sudden you're not imbued with superior knowledge? You know, you have superior strength. You're almost like a spirit being. Why is it like that? Why is it the Spirit is like the germ, like the seminal beginning of a new life put in us, like the seed that is planted within us? Why is that? That God expects it to grow? Because He, brethren, wants us to use those limitations to prepare us for much greater roles in the kingdom of God. And He wants us in this life to confront those limitations, to overcome those limitations. And, brethren, we have a lot of them, don't we? Physically, mentally sometimes, depending upon our environment and our past. So God has a great potential for us, but, brethren, there's a lot of raw material here that He's working with in us. Let's go to 1 Corinthians chapter 15, I should say. 1 Corinthians chapter 15, over here.

But here, notice in verse 38, But God gives it a body as it pleases him, to each seed its own body. He's talking about the different seed that is sown and the different fruit that comes about. You plant a peach seed, it comes up a peach tree, and it produces peaches, right? He gave the body to it, whatever that body is. You know, in this case, it would be a tree. But as it pleases him.

All flesh is not the same flesh. But there is one kind of flesh of nim, another flesh of animals, another of fish, and another of birds.

But He goes on to say there are celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies. And you and I pinch ourselves, we're the terrestrial kind.

If you can't pinch yourself, I guess you'd be the celestial kind. But the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun. He goes on and talks about the glory of the moon. Glory of the stars. For one star differs from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption. It is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor. It is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness. It is raised in power. It is sown in a natural body, like you and I have. And it, again, starts when we're a little bitty babes, small babes. It is raised in a spiritual body. There's a natural body and there's a spiritual body. And so it is written, the first Adam became a living being. The last Adam, of course, was Christ, became a life-giving spirit. And so, you know, we, brethren, are going to be spiritual when it's all finished. We're not starting there that way, though, but when we're baptized, we're like babes. We're just starting. We're just beginning. And hopefully, like these little bundles of appetite up here today, one day you're going to see them and they'll be grown women. They'll get married. They'll have their children, you know. They'll have their life. We pray, of course, before that time comes that we'll be in the kingdom, right? We hope that when that occurs that we will have that chance to be in God's kingdom. But, brethren, God has a glorious future for us, just like these little bundles of appetite have a great future ahead of them. It's a certain kind of glory. There is a glory, I think, in young men and young women, you know, that they reach their maturity. You know, if they're fully developed mentally and they're mature and you know, they've developed well, there's a glory, a certain glory to that.

But we know God's ultimate glory for us is the spiritual, being a part of God's family. But, again, let's see the fact that these little small bundles of appetites, brethren, are raw potential. You and I are potential. I think Mr. Armstrong used to call it, didn't he, the incredible human potential? Frankly, the world has never seen the incredible human potential. They've never understood the gospel. No, the gospel is not just, you know, as many in the world think that Christ has come back and we can be forgiven. That's only part of the gospel. The gospel, basically, in a nutshell, can be summed up by the fact that you can become a member of God's family. And that's awesome, isn't it? It is simply awesome beyond, in fact, imagination. The other thing I think that we observe, we observe, again, they're small, little babies are small. They are raw potential that really needs to be developed. You know, other things, too, is I think that it's so, it's amazing to look at, particularly if you've had a rough life, particularly if you've gone through some things in your life and you had a child and you want something better for your children. I think this really hits you. You know, I know when our children were born, we wanted something better for them. I know that my wife feel very, and I feel very elated, our lives, our families were, I'm not saying that they were all that bad. I know a particular hers was not. I had wonderful parents. There were some foibles there. But we wanted something better for our children than we had. I think probably that's what happened to a lot of the baby boomers after World War II. Unfortunately, they went too far, didn't they? And they gave them things rather than the spiritual, making the spiritual important. But one other thing, you look at, you hold this little bundle of appetites. A third observation about the brethren is they're pure, aren't they? They're absolutely innocent.

There's nothing you could accuse a little baby of doing wrong. Besides being raw material, they are pure. They're like gold, if you can put it that way. 100% gold. And absolutely innocent. You know, God actually, in His word, says He wants us to be that way, as His people. Let's go to Ephesians 5 over here, and we see that example over here. And, you know, here, Paul is talking about marriage as we get on into this discussion here.

Certainly ties in to children, doesn't it? And family.

But Ephesians 5 down to verse 25, it says, "... just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her." There should be a reciprocity of love between a husband and a wife. Not one-way street, in other words, it should be back and forth between the two. In the same way that Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it. And I've said this many, many times, brethren, that the father, the husband, ought to be the greatest sacrificer of the family.

But going on, it says, "... that he may sanctify and cleanse her with a washing of the water by the word, that he might present her to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she, again, the church, should be holy and without blemish." Holy and without blemish. So that's what God wants for each and every one of you and me. He wants us to be pure, holy, unspotted, and without blemish. Or wrinkle. He doesn't want us to be all wrinkled up, either, does he? Wrinkles in the sense of having all these hang-ups and all these problems. You've seen it before, where people have gotten married and, you know, one of the mates has so much baggage. It's almost like the marriage is doomed to fail. But, you know, when people have love in their eyes, I've seen it happen many times, even within the church. I counsel with people and I've told them, you're not even compatible. But love, you know, love is blind. Or is it lust? I think it's lust, isn't it? But how many times do people end up getting married anyway?

And what happens? Well, maybe in some cases it might work out, but a lot of times it doesn't.

And so God does not want to enter into a marriage relationship. Jesus Christ does not want to enter into a marriage relationship with His church having a lot of baggage in terms of at least spotted by the world out there. Once God has called us, once He's opened our minds, once He has forgiven us, He wants us to remain in that forgiven state, that state of grace that He has given to us. Let's go to James chapter 1, James 1 and verse 27 over here.

Here James says, pure and undefiled religion before God, and the Father is this. Okay, some people talk about, well, this is my religion. Okay. But here he's saying, pure and undefiled religion before God is this, to visit orphans and widows in their trouble to keep oneself unspotted from the world. Well, that's a lot right there. Is it in verse 27 to digest, to go through?

You know, God wants us to be pure. He wants us to be undefiled and unspotted. This is what real religion is about. Unspotted. You know, how many spots do we have on us? How much have we been defiled? How much of... how pure are we, brethren? Are we like these little bundle of appetite? No, we're not.

So these are the three observations, brethren, I want us to think about here. Number one, children are small. And you know, they're humble. They're moldable. They're teachable. We could say a lot of things about that. God wants us to remain small in our own eyes. Little bundles of appetite are like raw material. When we're first converted, we're babes in Christ. We're raw material. And God wants us to realize that. He wants us to see that. Now, a little baby can't understand that, but we can. We can. We can grasp it because we're mature mentally. You know, we should be able to grasp that. And God has given us His Spirit to even see it in a very bold way. And thirdly, brethren, little babies are born pure and absolutely innocent. And God wants us to be pure and to be purifying ourselves. In fact, the Bible says in 1 John 3 over there, because we know that we're going to be like Christ because we're going to see Him as He is. And it says He that has this knowledge in Him purifies Himself. So God wants us to be pure, brethren, and He wants us to be innocent of this world. Now, I read Matthew 18 verses 1 through 4 about children and how we are to become converted as little children. Now, God does not want us to be childish, but He wants us to be childlike. There's a difference, you know, between those two. God doesn't want somebody as childish. What do you call somebody that's a childish person? What's a word that comes to your mind? Fool? A fool? That would be a good word, wouldn't it? God doesn't want fools. He does not suffer fools. That's the message of Bible as well.

But, you know, our children hold necessary traits given at birth, which must be in us during our conversion and our changing as God's people. We talked about three of these. There are many of them, and there's many that could segue off of these three points here. One of which, I think, a great point is humility itself as a whole new subject or a whole other subject that could be talked about. Pure religion. You know, what does that mean in the Greek? What does it mean in the Greek? You know, we don't like the word religion, do we? Sometimes I mention about, well, what's your religion to somebody? They don't like that word religion, so I don't tend to do that. Pure religion. What is religion, anyway? Well, if you look at the Greek, brethren, the word is worship. Worshiping.

Pure worship, in other words, means this. If we read what James is saying here, pure worship means this, that our motives, brethren, are pure in how we serve God.

Remember the story in Acts 5 about Ananias and Sapphira, and how that, you know, in Jerusalem, they decided they're going to sell a piece of property, and they're going to bring the money, you know, to the feet of the apostles, and they're going to give this money? Well, Ananias and Sapphira plotted between themselves. Well, what we'll do is we'll keep part of the price back. We won't tell them how much we got for this, and we'll give this part to the church. Well, anyway, you know, Ananias goes in, and he tells us lie to Peter, and Peter says, why have you lied to the Holy Spirit? And he drops, and Ananias drops dead, and the young men come in, and they, you know, carry him out, and they bury him. And a few hours later, Sapphira comes out, and he didn't know what had happened to her husband for the lie that he had told, and of course, he subsequently told the lie herself. And, you know, Peter said, well, the same men that just carried your husband out are going to be carrying you out, too. And she dropped dead, and they carried her out. This is great fear came upon the church. What was the reason for that? It may have been more of a plot, by the way, there than we are aware of that Ananias and Sapphira were trying to to foist her in the church. But imagine this, brethren, the church had just begun, and you hear you have a bunch of hypocrites like that, a couple of hypocrites like that, they're trying to fool the church. You think about how outrageous that was, how insincere on their part. You know, Peter said, look, it was within your power. You didn't have to give it all to the church, but why did you lie? Why did you lie? But you see, their motive was wrong. Their motive was wrong. And that's not true worship of God. So, brethren, unless our motive is right before God, don't think you were going to fool anybody. We're not going to fool anybody. You know, somebody might not come in and carry your body out and my body out for doing that. But believe me, we don't get away with anything in God's sight, because He knows. He knows, doesn't He? Now, what is your religion like anyway, brethren? I mean, what is your true worship like? Is it like a spare tire only for an emergency? Or is it like a wheelbarrow that's easily tipped over? In other words, you surrender your worship of God at the least pressure. Or is your religion, brethren, like a bus? You utilize only when it goes your way. Think about that. Let that sink in, brethren. What is your worship of God? What is your religion about?

You know, in James 1, 27, it says that we are to be pure and undefiled. I have that pure and undefiled religion or worship before God. And He said it's to visit the fatherless and the widow and to keep unspotted from the world. Not to visit, brethren, means to inspect the needs of. To keep unspotted. In other words, not allowing yourself to be contaminated. And I'll tell you, there's a lot of contamination in the world today, particularly in this modern age that we live in with so many ideas about evolution, about, you know, women and their role in society, about homosexuality, LGBT. I found it quite interesting that, you know, this topic at the Democratic debate came up, you know, that it's almost like it was wedged in. You know, you get the idea, by the way, that homosexuals in this country amount to 20 or 30 percent of the country. But it's way, I think, is below, isn't it, 10 percent?

And yet they have such a monstrous sway over the world. So much so, brethren, that in your school, you know, you will hear teachers teaching about two moms and two dads, and now they're advertisements down on television. I don't know if you've seen that or not, but I was noticing that. I hadn't seen it myself online, but I did see it, you know, on the computer. I mean, I saw it online, not on TV. But, you know, they had, in fact, two men that were dealing an ad that had to do with parents, basically. It won't be long, brethren, before you're going to have even worse things that are going to happen. Now, why does James mention these two things as undefiled religion and pure religion? You know, to keep, to visit, inspect the needs of the followers in the widow, and, you know, to keep yourself unspotted from the world. Why does he use these two things? Well, brethren, giving is a matter of giving from a pure heart. Giving isn't restricted to helping orphans and widows, but your extended hand to anyone needing encouragement. In other words, he's not just talking about widows and orphans, but you see, when you go out and you help a widow or an orphan, they can't really do anything back for you, can they? You help them, and you're doing it out of a pure heart. Well, God wants us to learn through that, brethren, to do that with all that we're concerned with, to extend our hand of encouragement. Sometimes it's only being willing to listen to someone. Sometimes they don't really want words, sometimes they just want somebody to listen to us. So, when he talks about keeping unspotted and to visit here or inspect the needs of these, he's talking about principles here that should, in fact, color all of our conversion and what we do in our lives. It really boils right down to it, brethren. It means utilizing God's way by your really changing. I think it's more natural, isn't it, to have compassion upon a widow and an orphan?

Maybe not so much when we're talking about other things, other people.

It's natural to have that desire. You want to do, in fact, a lot for someone who can't really do for themselves. Well, we need to, brethren, have that attitude toward all things that we do.

So, brethren, what he's really talking about here when he talks about pure religion and undefiled, brethren, is you and me really changing, changing in our entire life. And this echoes, brethren, of what Jesus Christ said. Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not the things that I say? How can you call me Lord if you don't do the things I say? See, all the religion in the world, brethren, is of no value unless we apply it, unless we're changing ourselves, unless we're overcoming. Up here in verse 22, it says, For he be doers of the word, and not hearers only deceiving yourselves. So be doers. And down in verse 26, If any among you thinks he's religious, he knows how to worship God, and does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his own heart. This man's religion or worship, you might say, is useless. So what James is saying is much more than visiting the, inspecting the needs of the fatherless and the widow. It has to do, again, with our changing and really applying, brethren, what, in fact, you know, we've been taught.

Over in chapter 2 and verse 17, over in chapter 2 and verse 17, he says, Here James says, Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

No. So we've got to have works with the faith that we have. And down in verse 26, it says, For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. That's why, by the way, Martin Luther called the book of James a book of straw. Because he didn't like the idea that you had to actually do something, yet have works. Because he preached that basically, you know, the idea that once saved, always saved, which is false, a false idea. And many people believe it, of course, in that way.

So, brethren, doing is a part of real true worship of God or true religion. Doing by inculcating God's way, brethren, in our lives by extending that way that God is put in us by helping others. It means, brethren, we must be integrated into the body of Christ.

And be a real participant in it. If our conversion is real, as the Bible even says, and there's a, you know, scriptures we could show about this, we have to have on the garments of involvement, the garments of righteousness, clothed with these things as God's people. And, you know, Apostle Paul talked these things as well. Later, we see him discussing the very, very same things. Let's go to Galatians 6. Galatians 6.

Galatians 6, verse 9.

I know sometimes, brethren, the road has been longer than we thought it was going to be. You know, when I was baptized back in 1968, I thought Christ was going to be surely to come, he's going to return in the 70s. I mean, it looked really bad back in those days. I know some of you probably were there. You remember they had people marching the streets and protesting the Vietnam War. And, I mean, school even where I was. And I lived, I went to a sort of a podunk university in Oklahoma. They were, you know, kids were marching, throwing bricks and incredible things. I sat at my dorm room and watched it all. They had the, what was it, the, some of you may remember, the Students for a Socialist, yeah, STS, Democratic Society. They're like old Bernie that's running now, you know. They wanted that back then. But we thought it was going to happen. But the road, it's like the old song, it's a long and winding road, further than we thought. But notice here in verse 6 of Galatians, it's sort of a segue into that. Here Paul says, let us not grow weary while doing good. We can have those works, brethren. For in due season, we will reap if we do not lose heart. Don't give up. You know, you're rounding the curve. Mr. Armstrong used to call it, didn't he, the gunlap?

We didn't realize the gunlap might be 20 or 30 years, you know. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those that are of the household of faith. You see, don't give up. Keep pushing. Keep going forward. You'll attain the goal that is ahead of you, and God will see that. He's going to clutch you and me, brethren, like the parents do their children when they come up to ask. The prayers be given for them, and the ministers ask God's blessing upon them. Let's go to Titus. Over in Titus. Titus chapter 3, over here. It's page 827, for some of you have my Bible. But Titus 3, in verse 8, it says, This is a faithful saying, and these things I want you to affirm constantly, that those who have believed in God, do you believe in God, brethren? Of course you do, don't you? Should be careful to maintain good works. You see, the good works are good, but you've got to maintain the good works. These things are good and profitable to men. So God wants us to maintain our good works, not just do it once and, well, I did my good work, so I'm done. It's like there is an advertisement on television about, you know, they asked the question, what if you could do one push-up and you would be physically fit? You've seen that. You've seen that advertisement? You know, just think, what if you could do one work and it would be over? One good work. Well, it's not that way, brethren, it never will be that way.

For those of us in the flesh, God, it just cannot be that way. But going on down through here, down in verse 14, let's notice this, but it says, but without your consent, I want, oh, I'm sorry, I'm in Pilemon for some reason. And let, verse 14, and let our people also learn to maintain good works to meet urgent needs that they may not be unfruitful. See, when we stop being people who maintain good works, we become unfruitful. It's like we're like that tree that Christ went to, and he's looking for figs, and he couldn't find them. He should look behind our house, by the way. We had a tree that was so loaded this year with figs, it was incredible.

In fact, so many that they got to be a problem to us. But anyway, you know, God wants to be able to go to that fruit tree, and each of us are symbolically a tree, and he wants to be able to pluck a fruit from it. Being fruitful, rather, means that we are responsive during urgent needs, too. And we don't make a claim, well, you know, I helped already in the past. Well, if there's a need, there's a need, isn't there? And God wants us to be able to respond to urgent needs. Let's go to Hebrews 13. Hebrews 13. Hebrews 13 over here, in verse 16.

Here, he says, but do not forget to do good and to share, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased. So whatever God has blessed you with, brethren, and I know that God's people are very generous. Remember to share with other people, as you can, as you're able to do that. You know, God's way of life is something each of us must do, brethren, personally. And each of us must apply our lives personally. It's not what somebody else does for us. It's what we do, brethren. We've got to do that. Nobody can take our place. Every one of us has got to go through the wringer, so to speak, the keyhole backwards, before we're going to be born into God's kingdom. You know, God never intended Christi to think that His way just comprises coming to church on the Sabbath. I mean, show me in the Bible where, in fact, that's all you have to do, just come to church on the Sabbath. Or going to Holy Day services. Or going off to the Feast of Tabernacles. Those things, obviously, are instructed within the Bible, and we're commanded to do them tithing. You can even tithe faithfully. You can refrain from eating unclaimed foods. Or many other things that we know that one as a Christian should do.

But, brethren, it is a way of life intended to change us and to facilitate change in others through our changes, so that the church is edifying itself and growing. You know, the more you grow, the more I grow. Right? The more I grow, the more you grow. There's a reciprocity there, brethren, for us all to think about. So God wants it to be a way of life that changes us. It's not just tithing. It's not just keeping the Sabbath. It's not just, you know, keeping the holy days and keeping the feast. It is really changing yourself from within.

What God wants in us, brethren, is His ways, and that it is our life.

You know, if our religion is comprised of attending church, simply doing that, that's not enough. Not enough.

If our way of life is keeping the holy days, you know, and keeping the Sabbath, that's not enough.

If our way of life is tithing or giving an offering on a holy day, it's not enough. Those things we should do, but it's not enough. You know, even in the Old Testament, by the way, what did God say that He required of people? He said, He said, you shall love the Lord your God. Here's how it's put, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. Now, what does that mean to you? Your whole being, everything about you, that you're immersed in it. You know, the apostle Paul gave assignments to the church. A member of the church in Jerusalem was going through a horrible drought, and so they collected food, you know, for the brethren in Jerusalem, and the Corinthian brethren responded. Someday we may have things like that, brethren. We're going to have to respond. We're going to have to do sacrificing for one another, above and beyond what maybe we think now we will have to do.

Again, God wants us to really change and be different and to be always changing. A child of God must be immersed in God's ways personally. Again, no one can do for you what you have to do for yourself. We can't excuse ourselves and say, well, you know, I've already done that before, and my job is done. Your job and my job is never done. It's never done. It never will be done. Even when we're in the kingdom, it won't be done. We've got a bigger job then, don't we? I mean, it's going to be a bigger job to convert the whole world into the millennium than we've got now. Our main job right now, brethren, you know who that is? Our main job is changing me, and you should be pointing to yourself. That's your main job. If you can do that, brethren, change yourself. If you can overcome yourself and really change, I mean, make those changes in your life that are really meaningful. Then you'll accomplish a great deal, and hopefully in doing that, you will help many other people who see you and are inspired by what you do and want to do it themselves. Well, we're converted, though. We're born babes.

You know, when we first come to the church, you know, when I talk to people after they get baptized, usually I say to them, or one of the elders says to them, all your sins have been forgiven by the blood of Jesus Christ.

And we tell them that they are pure that day than the day that they were born, basically. Or as pure as the day they were born. But this is a spiritual birth, of course. The goal, brethren, is to remain that way. But you know, as much as you may try, you're going to make mistakes. You really will. I baptized one man, and he told me the next Sabbath. He said, you know, I was baptized, and he said, the devil beat me home.

And that's about the way it is. And the greatest devil that exists sometimes is between our own two eyes, between our ears, our own mind, rather, and the carnality that is within us.

We've been immersed in this world, though, haven't we? And just being baptized and having our sins forgiven doesn't take away the human nature that is within us. What's ahead of the bathe in Christ is a lifetime of overcoming, a lifetime of battling, of fighting to overcome, to change, to change. You know, we, of course, hopefully will make headway. Realize, brethren, that you're never going to be perfect, but you're always in the process of perfecting. Now, when Christ comes back and you change the spirit of being, you will be perfect then. You will be perfect then, but you're working toward perfection. God has a great, great, awesome future for us, brethren. Let's grasp it. You know, these little bundles of appetites up here, you know, like you say, they, you know, they're small. We need to remain small in our own eyes. These little bundles of appetites are raw potential. We need to remember we're the potential. It's not what we are so much right now, it's what we shall become, but we got to maintain those good works. And also, little babes are pure and innocent, and we need to remain, brethren, pure and innocent for the time of our baptism to fight to do that. It's a battle to do that, keep ourselves unspotted from this world. And, brethren, to accomplish it all, we need Jesus Christ, our Lord. We need Him. We need His blood to wipe away our sins, and we need to readily admit when we make mistakes. And God is faithful. He is faithful. He will forgive us. He will forgive us. Satan may convince you that, no, God can't forgive me for this, but God will, if you will turn around and begin to go the right way. Christ said we must be converted and changed and become as little children, to be childlike in the way of how we are as God's people. Brother, let's make sure that we're making the observations of these little babies, and much more than that, applying what we learn to our everyday life so that we can be in the kingdom of God. Remember, we have to become converted, you know, and be as little children, to be in God's kingdom. So, let's make sure we don't miss that great lesson of this day.