James 1:25-2:2

SPEAKER 02 : 0:03

The foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith.

SPEAKER 04 : 0:17

Remember the old saying, ignorance is bliss? Welcome to Through the Bible. I’m Steve Schwetz. And today, our teacher, Dr. J. Bernard McGee, tells us what the New Testament book of James has to say about ignorance, particularly if you’ve chosen to stay ignorant after you’ve been given the facts. But first, Through the Bible’s president, Greg Harris, and I have a great update on our home group movement around the world, specifically in the country of Bangladesh.

SPEAKER 03 : 0:42

A country that you and I have both been to. We’ve been there together. And it’s exciting to see what God is doing. And we, as always, just see so much fruit out of this kind of ministry because it’s Bible study, it’s fellowship, it’s worship. While we’re not trying to plant churches, it often is a church in a place where there is no local church.

SPEAKER 04 : 1:06

Yeah, and it’s interesting to see that – I don’t know if people realize that Bangladesh is the eighth most populous country in the world, and it’s not that big. No.

SPEAKER 03 : 1:14

I mean – One-tenth the size of the state of Alaska. I actually looked that up to make sure our folks were right, and that is absolutely correct. One-tenth the size of Alaska. Okay. Incredible.

SPEAKER 04 : 1:24

It is. Let’s get to the letters when we talk about it because of our experiences there. Here’s a woman who listens in Bengali Muslimi. My name is Jarena. I am a home group member and recently was baptized. Thank you for your lessons on prayer. I was very confused by prayer and was unsure how to talk with God. Now I have learned to pray properly through your teaching. Every morning I pray, and at night I pray together with my family members. I feel peace through prayer, and I thank God that I learned to pray through the media kits.

SPEAKER 03 : 1:54

Now, let’s just – that’s amazing, first of all, just to think. And we take so many things for granted. Even people that come to faith in Christ in North America are coming out of a Judeo-Christian framework and have – they’re familiar with it. But somebody out of probably a Muslim background, most likely, just doesn’t understand Christian prayer. Maybe you can explain what a media kit is.

SPEAKER 04 : 2:18

Yeah, a media kit is kind of the go-home packet for the person that’s a home group leader. And so they get some teaching materials. They also get the media player. And it gives them the basis for some training that they receive so that they can be an effective small group leader. And we found this, that people that the home group leaders often get ministered to, which is the right way. I mean, you feed yourself first before you feed somebody else. And that happens with people getting exposed via the media kits to the Word of God. Yes. Here’s another letter. This is from Sarifa. She’s a woman and she listens in Bengali Muslimi as well. Greg, why don’t you read about her experience?

SPEAKER 03 : 2:55

As a home group leader here again, we have a leader. She says, I listen one day a week with my group members. Besides this, every day I listen to the word of God from the media kit in my house. Since I received this media kit, my neighbors started to persecute my family and me in various ways. I was very disturbed and angry with them, and sometimes we argued. But listening to the book of Acts, I learned to control my anger by submitting my soul and emotions to God and obeying his word. Now I pray for my neighbors and can avoid clashes with them and have peace in my heart. God has blessed me by his words.

SPEAKER 04 : 3:32

Yeah, it is such an encouragement to see the impact of the ministry, specifically in the context of these home groups in Bangladesh. The number that I love, and we’re almost out of time, but the number I love is that over 30% of those in those groups are not Christians. They’re Hindu and they’re Muslim primarily, or agnostic, I don’t know. But they’re coming to the Lord as a result of Bible study and direct engagement with the Word of God.

SPEAKER 03 : 3:55

And a community that loves them and prays for them and reaches out to them.

SPEAKER 04 : 3:59

Yeah, it’s so exciting. And we would so appreciate if you’d continue to pray for this ministry, particularly in Bangladesh as well. Greg, why don’t you pray as we begin?

SPEAKER 03 : 4:07

Father, we do. We bring the thousands of home groups in Bangladesh before you and ask you to use them to reach people and deepen their walk with you. And now, as we open your word, we pray you’d show us your truth. In Jesus’ name, amen. Amen.

SPEAKER 04 : 4:25

Let’s go to James chapter 1 as we make our way through the Bible with Dr. J. Vernon McGee.

SPEAKER 01 : 4:30

Now, friends, we’ve come down to verse 25 of this section where God tests faith by the Word. You can never, my friend, get away from the Word of God. Every child wants to hear the voice of his father, especially when it is a voice of comfort as well as a voice of correction. And one who is not interested in the Word of God or doesn’t stay near the Word of God. Now, if he is a child of God, which is very doubtful, but if he is a child of God, he’s going to get into trouble. That is for sure. Now, he says in verse 25, “…but whosoever looketh into the perfect law of liberty and continueth in it, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.” Now, the law of liberty here is the law of Christ. They’re commandments that he’s given. He says, if you love me, keep my commandments. And he’s bringing you up to a much higher plane than the Ten Commandments did. Now, as we said last time, to become a child of God and say you’re not under the Mosaic system, you don’t mean that you go out and break the Ten Commandments. The laws are for law breakers, by the way, and for the weak, for the ignorant. It’s what to do, where to go and how, and punish those that break over. Now, honest citizens do not need the laws. Now, I don’t know about you, but I do not know one half of the laws of this state in which I live. I’ll tell you this, every shyster lawyer does. And you know why? Because he’s seeking loopholes to break those laws. So that God has been calling his children to a higher level. And the child of God has a spiritual spontaneity, a high and lofty motive, an inspiration of God. The believer does not want to murder. He lives above the law. He’s now motivated by the love of the Savior, and he wants to obey him. Now, the more we read and study the Word, we’ll learn that And then we’ll love. And then we’re going to live. And joy fills and floods the soul. We’re not like a galley slave whipped and chained to a bench and doing that which we do not want to do. Does God ask the unsaved to be a doer of the word? Well, yes, this word. Then said he unto this man that came, what shall I do that we might work the works of God? And Jesus answered and said unto him, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent. In other words, today you and I may not need to know the laws of our state, all of them, or this country for that matter, but we certainly do need to know the Word of God if we’re to live for Him. And I don’t agree with that popular song today that, I don’t know whether it’s rock or not, but it’s modern music. It says you don’t need to understand, you just need to hold His hand. Well, my friend, you do need to understand You’re not apt to be holding his hand unless you do understand. My feeling is that there are too many folk that are too ignorant of the word of God. It’s no disgrace to be ignorant. I don’t know about you. I was born ignorant. I didn’t even know A from B when I was born. Couldn’t even talk. Couldn’t even walk. I was in bad shape. But I didn’t stay in that shape and you didn’t either. Today, it’s no disgrace to be ignorant. It’s a disgrace to stay ignorant for a child of God. And that is what he’s talking about here. Now he says, if any man among you seem to be religious and bridle if not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain. Now he’s talking here about religion today. This is quite interesting. That word religious and religion, these words are actually words that are not Bible words. They occur very few times in the New Testament. I don’t think that you’d find the word religion occurring over half a dozen times in the New Testament. James uses it here more than anyone else. Actually, the word religion comes from a Latin word that means to bind back. And you find Herodotus in the Greek using the word, was not a word used very commonly in the Greek at all. And he spoke of the religion of the Egyptian priests. And it has to do with going through a ritual and a form and a ceremony and that type of thing. Now, there are many religions today. They can demonstrate. that they have faithful, zealous followers. But may I say to you, I don’t think you could call any of them Christian just because you conform to certain outward forms of ritual. Because Christianity, in my book, as I’ve said many times, is not a religion at all. It’s a person. And that person is Christ. And you either have him or you don’t have him. Now, this is something that is quite obvious. Even a religious man, if he doesn’t bridle his tongue, doesn’t control his speech, why, that man, his religion, regardless of what it is, is vain. Now, what about the Christian? Well, now, he’s going to have a great deal a little later on to say about the child of God. And about this matter of the tongue. And I’m going to save that till I get to that chapter. And by the way, I can’t wait till I get to chapter 3 to talk about the tongue. The tongue today that needs bridling. Someone has said that you can’t believe half you’re here today, but you can repeat it. And that’s the problem in the churches. We have too many people that have an unbridled tongue. And now he says, what is pure religion? Now, if you want really a religion, and that which is undefiled, and I think that we need to recognize that right here, pure religion that’s undefiled before God and the Father, is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. Now, this is a tremendous statement here. Now, pure here means, in a sense, it’s the positive side, and undefiled is in the negative side. You’d have to have both if you had… the right kind of a religion. And certainly Christianity ought to produce this. Now, on the positive side, he says to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction. And that means this. A child of God ought to be in contact, and I mean personal contact, with the sorrow of the world and the problems of the people of the world. Now, that’s where the politicians today become very clever. They got it from the Bible, by the way. They’ve gone out and met the people, shake their hands. They’ve made the personal contact. I don’t think they help people very much. But you and I today rejoice in this. And I read a letter like that today. Here’s a man that apparently makes contact. And he found out that two people that he talked to listened to our program. And they were able to make suggestions to him. One to get logs of the program to give out. And the other one that we had notes and outlines. And he didn’t know that. And I don’t know how he could keep from knowing it if he listens to the program since we say it so often. And maybe that’s the reason we need to say it often so that people will respond. Now, that is getting down where the people are. And I feel today there’s a grave danger of the fact that we have a religion of the sanctuary and we do not have one of the street. And we need that. And that means that if we’re in contact with the world, we should be in contact with the world with a tenderness and a kindness and a helpfulness. Now, look here at the negative side. He keeps himself unspotted. Now, contact with the world does not mean to be implicated in the things of the world. The Lord Jesus said you’re in the world, but you’re not of the world. And therefore, you and I are to bring in a personal contact. Now, I could give here illustration after illustration of that. I think of one of a little boy and his mother died. And the father tried to raise the little fella. And of course, he had to work. And a couple became interested in the little fella. And they were a wealthy couple and relatives. And they said to the father, you are not able to give the boy everything in life. He was a poor man. We are wealthy. We can give him everything. And so the father went to the little boy to talk to him, give him a sales talk about, you know, going and living with these folks. And he said to the little fella, they’ll give you a bicycle. They’ll give you toys. They’ll give you wonderful gifts at Christmas time. And they’ll take you on trips. And they’ll do things for you that I can’t do for you. And the little boy says, I don’t want to go. And the father says, why? He says, they can’t give me you. That’s what the little fella wanted. And there are a lot of people today, friends, out yonder that want that personal contact. And you can bring in a Christian contact with these people with sweetness and love and consideration and kindness. But let’s remember, to keep ourselves unspotted from the world because you can get so implicated in that it becomes a very dangerous thing. That brings us now to chapter 2. And in the first 13 verses of chapter 2, God tests faith by attitude and action in respect of persons. Now, how do you treat people in the different stratas of society today? How do you treat the rich man? How do you treat the poor man? How do you treat the average man that you meet today? Now, he’s going to deal with that in this section here. And this section is actually God’s war on poverty. And then the interesting thing is God’s war on riches. God’s war on poverty and riches. And his is a little different than our government. Our government has sort of fouled it up. Didn’t make any difference which party was in office. They sure fouled up this, and the state can’t handle it either. Frankly, what is it that’s the real problem? Well, what he’s going to say here, and James has a great deal to say about the rich. This man almost sounds like a radical. But I don’t think he’s a radical in the modern sense of the word. But I tell you, he certainly goes after the rich. When we get to the fifth chapter, we find out he’s talking to them directly. And here he has something to say about this. Now, both poverty and riches can be a curse. And part of the curse of sin upon the race actually is poverty and riches. The writer of the Proverbs says, give me neither poverty nor riches. The most difficult people to reach today are the most poverty-stricken people and those that are the richest. It seems to be almost impossible to reach either class with the Word of God. What is the problem? Well, the problem actually is an imbalance of the wealth of the world. Now, today, the big problem is not actually between Democrat and Republican. The real problem today is not between the races. I don’t think that it’s a black and white problem in our country today. And I don’t think that’s the problem in the world. The problem in the world today is the imbalance of the wealth of the world. Here is a nation like India, and even with a tremendous population, and they have one in five of the population of the world, there is famine and starvation. They starve by the thousands over there today. And look at the luxuries. and the abundance that the wealthy have today. Now, God goes after that problem, by the way, in this epistle. And he’s on the side of the poor. I’m very delighted to say that. After all, have you ever noticed the way the Lord Jesus came into the world? He wasn’t a rich man’s boy. He wasn’t born with a spoon in his mouth. He was born to die on a cross, my friends. And he was born in poverty. He was born in a borrowed stable. He had to borrow sandwiches from a little lad to feed the crowd. He spoke from a borrowed boat. He never had a place to lay his head. He borrowed a coin to illustrate a truth. There was a twofold reason why he borrowed that coin. He wanted to use the other man’s money, but he didn’t have one himself. He borrowed a little donkey to ride into Jerusalem. He borrowed a room to celebrate the Passover. And he died on a borrowed cross. It belonged to Barabbas, not to him. And they put him in a borrowed tomb. It was Joseph of Arimathea. May I say to you, he’s going to talk about that here. When I was in college, we had a preacher that came and he talked upon the blessings of poverty. Now, I was a poor boy, and I mean poor, friends. I was going to school on borrowed money and working full time. And that man spoke every morning in chapel, and I was told that he got $15,000 a year. Now, that was back when a dollar was worth a dollar and not 26 cents. And that was a lot of money in that day for a preacher. And you know, what he had to say just ran off my mind like water on a duck’s back. Why? He had no message for me. Blessings of poverty? I just happen to know since I was born that way and I haven’t got too far from it yet. The thing is that, friends, there’s no blessings in poverty. Part of the curse that Christ bore was poverty, by the way. And riches can be a curse, as he’s going to show in this epistle. And Paul had already said, the love of money is the root of all evil. And Paul and James certainly agreed here. You can spend your money for the wrong items. You can deposit your money in a wrong bank. Gather not up for yourself treasures on earth. And all the banks are telling you today where to put your money. God says, I got a bank. And it’ll be up there for you. Now, James will be harsh with the rich. We’ll see that in the fifth chapter. And in Proverbs 38, I should give you that. Give me neither poverty nor riches. That should be, I think, the philosophy of a Christian. Now, what is God’s solution to the problem of poverty? It’s not rob the rich to take care of the indigent, the lazy, the indolent, the drones, the loafers, and the sluggards, and the laggards. On the other hand, God would never destroy the dignity and the self-respect and the integrity and the honor of the poor by placing them on charity. God’s war on poverty and riches does not march under the banner of the dollar where millions are appropriated. And it’s not aimed at the head or the stomach primarily, but at the heart. War against class. Distinctions and divisions of believers. That is the thing that he’s talking about here. And it’s been brought about by money, of course. The poor and the rich. Now listen to him in chapter 2. My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons. Don’t profess faith in Christ and at the same time be a spiritual snob. Don’t join some little clique in the church. All believers are brethren, and this has to do with denominations and in the body of Christ. And there is a fellowship of believers. A friendship should be over them as a banner today. Now, James is addressing the total community of believers, the rich, the poor, the influential, the common people, the high, the low, the bond and free, the Jew and the Gentile, the Greek and the barbarian, male and female. And they’re all one in Christ when they’ve come to Christ. He’s talking to believers now. body of believers, and the Lord Jesus Christ is the common denominator. Friendship and fellowship is the legal tender among believers. Why, the Old Testament, you remember, taught Israel not to regard the person of the rich or the poor. God taught that in the Mosaic system. And you remember, Simon Peter learned when he went down to Joppa. You remember when God let down that sheet with all kinds of animals that was in it. And he said, of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons. And back over in the 19th chapter of Leviticus. In the 15th verse, God says, “…ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment. Thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty, but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbor.” And a child of God today. Now, he uses a stinging illustration. For if there come into your assembly a man with a gold ring in fine apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile arraignment. Apparently, many of the Jewish believers were meeting in the synagogue. And you can see, friend, that’s going to be a lulu of an illustration, and it’s going to sting, and it’s going to sting hard with a gold ring. It doesn’t mean a single ring, but a man had his fingers loaded down with gold rings. That was an evidence of wealth. And goodly apparel means fine clothing, contrasted to the clothing of a poor man. And this was going to be now a discrimination made in favor of the rich. But we’re going to have to wait to see that next time. And until then, may God richly bless you, my beloved.

SPEAKER 04 : 25:06

For more great teaching by Dr. McGee in the book of James, join me for this Sunday sermon titled, One Subject Not Taught in God’s University. Listen on our app at ttb.org or call 1-800-65-BIBLE if we can help you find a local station that carries the Sunday sermon. I’m Steve Schwetz, and as always, I’ll meet you back here as the Bible bus rolls along through the entire Word of God.

SPEAKER 02 : 25:35

All to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow.

SPEAKER 04 : 25:53

Our journey on the Bible bus today is supported by the prayers and gifts of fellow passengers as we travel through the Bible.